Carnival Season is Back!

Carnival season is back! Carnivals offer a fun blend of long exposures and street photography, awash in bright (garish?) colors and redolent with the sweet smell of sugary fried dough.

This week, Wakefield, north of Boston, is having their annual April school vacation carnival. In 2022, It had a ferris wheel, several other spinning rides with changing lights, cotton candy, and Port-a-potties! (This year, they have added an admission charge, so access to the cotton candy and port-a-potties might cost $2.) And nearby free parking! And limited walking.

We will be meeting at the start of the blue hour, which should provide nice skies.

Last visit to this carnival
Last time the group went to a carnival (with Silvana)

This is a small carnival being held in a parking lot between two soccer fields, which are very brightly lit. It should be easy to get long exposures of the rides from outside of the carnival itself. The main challenge, as you can see in the featured photo, should be limiting the intrusion of things like fences.

Local newspaper announcement
To see some of the rides which might be available to photograph

The parking in Wakefield is not metered. It is opening night of the carnival, which tends to be more popular with young families, but you can check the parking lots before looking on-street. You might have to walk a bit, but it's all flat with sidewalks. We'll meet in front of the brick school building, which should be a little out of the way.

Thursday's forecast looks nice, maybe cooling off into the low 50s, with enough clouds to add interest to the images. You can have fun with a variety of lenses - wide angle will capture all of the ferris wheel, but a really fast telephoto can grab interesting details. This would be a good night to play with your ND filters (3, 6, and 10-stop maybe), to go longer without blowing out the lights on the rides. You will, of course, need a tripod. You may not be able to use it inside the carnival, but it should be easy to get good shots of the rides from outside the carnival.

Come on down and enjoy the festivities!