Corn dogs and cow pies: The Big E

Corn Dog

My first visit to The Big E is all about the food.

Big sausage feast

Little sausage feast

Once you have a full stomach, you have to move on. I move from cooked meat to the Farm-o-Rama and the horse stables. I find some strange behavior and the beginnings of a photo essay.

First, a bloody mystery develops.

I discover some heads with a non-human body.

Two heads and a cow back

As I search for other strange behavior, I see two headless figures surround a girl as she manipulates a personal digital device.

A girl and her cell.

Then there are more girls operating personal digital devices.

I feel bad for the horse without a phone.

I need a closer look at this suspicious cell phone activity.

Person to person via a text message

Too much technology. I need some old fashioned 20th century human contact.

Man woman eat love

These table sitters exude magic and mystery. I am getting away from the cell phone people and finding fashion free folks of intrigue. I’m tempted to look under the table to see where her pants went, but I fight off the urge.

I meet Josh Miller while he is on a break.

The people visiting and working at the Big E offer the best reasons to be there. Even my photo students take on a luminous sense of purpose.

I should just photograph my students. They are tops.

My Photojournalism class has spent the past two Fridays at the Eastern States Exposition in West Springfield. We will be there again this coming Friday. For the assignment, I ask students to concentrate on one aspect of the fair and photograph it for at least three visits. I have found my subject with the people who attend. Even from behind, they are interesting.

All photos by Frank Ward