Long Exposure Hunting At The Funfair - (All Original Work)

Once a year, the Diwali Funfair rolls into town and brings with it a variety of outdated carnival rides that are held together by nothing more than hopes and dreams, and perhaps some cable ties. Ignoring the rather dubious safety standards, it didn’t take me long to realise the photo opportunities that an event like this could provide - more long exposures than you could shake a stick at. Naturally, I made a note to set aside an evening to go and see what pictures I could dig out of the festival, and after a busy week, my Friday night was looking clear. It was time to go long exposure hunting.

Parking at the temporary fairgrounds, I was surprised by how empty the place was. The entire festival was free entry, and with a long list of attractions (thrill rides not included), I thought it would have been a hive of activity. While the slightly empty surroundings made setting up all photos a very easy task, they did come with one major downside - if there is no-one there to go on the rides, then how are the rides going to move for any photos? The answer was simple: patience (and some lucky timing).

(Above: spinning wall of death contraption)

Before getting started, I always walk around and make a "hit list" in my head of photos that I want to get before the night was over. It helps to have a plan, otherwise you'll just wander around aimlessly hoping for a good angle to present itself. Not ideal. Time was also of the essence, as I could spot storm clouds rolling in over the city behind me. Ideas gathered, it was time to get to work...

(Behind the scenes)

As with all shooting adventures, the first thing to check that was my camera was shooting in .RAW. The amount of detail you can pull out of RAW files is incredible, especially if you’re shooting in dark areas. Set the ISO to 100, f-stop round about 8, and an exposure time of 10 seconds would do just fine for this location.

In terms of equipment, I spent the majority of my evening using my old faithful 10-17mm fisheye lens, with a few shots reserved for the standard 24-105mm lens. There’s no doubt that the fisheye helps give everything a more “dramatic” appearance - rides that weren’t that big or entertaining suddenly look enormous. I also enlisted the help of my Canon wireless shutter release - no chance of any camera shake when using this, so I’d highly recommend it for anyone trying long exposures.

I don't know what was going on in the above photo, but let's be realistic - look at those light trails. There are certainly some very sick people on that ride.

Remarkably, not one person came over and asked me to stop taking photos. The security guards didn't seem the slightest bit interested in my presence, and only one ride operator asked if he could see a photo of mine out of curiosity (he asked if they were going to be "on the TV". I didn't have the heart to tell him no, so I just smiled and said "certainly").

And just like that, the night was over. The rain had held off for nearly two hours and close to 300 photos, but the lucky streak was about to end. As a few raindrops started to fall, I made a hasty retreat back to my car, and floored it out of the carpark before the other few attendees decided to follow suit. I took one last look in my rearview mirror while driving away, and saw the entire fairground suddenly illuminated by a huge lightning bolt streaking across the sky. That would have made for a one in a million photo, but hey... we can't win all the time right?

DISCLAIMER: As mentioned in the title, all photos are my own original work.

Equipment used:

Canon 6D
Tokina 10-17mm fisheye lens / 24-105mm F4 L Series lens
Manfrotto tripod
Canon wireless shutter remote
Lightroom CC for editing