With the 2018 Minnesota State Fair having started on Thursday I thought I would share my film images from last year.  Yes LAST YEAR, I've been meaning to post this blog post for over a year!!!  lol

We moved to the Twin Cities about 6 years ago.  The one tradition we started and make sure we keep up is going to the Minnesota State Fair.  It’s tradition, it’s a right of passage, it’s the end of summer.  We love it and we look forward to going every year.  We fill up on all the fried exotic food they have then ride the rides and visit the animals. (and hopefully no one throws up, cough cough my son Tyler)  It’s the one day a year that it will be blazing hot because we always go mid-day.  One of these days (now that my kids are older) I’ll be brave to go at night but for now I’m enjoying these summer days with my kids while they still want to be around me. 

For those who have been following my photography journey you may have noticed that in the past year or so now I’ve been playing more and more with film so I knew going to the fair during the harsh light of the mid-day sun meant taking film.  Nothing beats film when shot at high noon.  When most photographers run with their digital cameras to the shade or only come out for that golden hour sunlight; film photographers rejoice with the the sun so bright and high in the sky.   And with the bright colors of the fair, film was the natural choice to capture these final days of summer before school starts and the snow falls and we’re left again with a dreary world. 

Living in Minnesota is tough especially when you’re not from here but “Minnesota nice” is a real thing and it’s a great place to raise our kids.  It’s almost as if it’s a step back in time from when I was young.  Summers here involve playing with friends on the street all hours of the days (there are no street lights that go on we wait until the lighting bugs come out), swimming in lakes, and running from backyard to backyard.  The summers always end with the full bellies, and sticky fingers from the state fair.