Daily Photo No. 10: All the fun of the fair

Bird's funfair is an integral feature of Puck Fair - it's been coming for about 75 years, setting up a couple of days before the official event and staying on for a few days after before moving on to the next big event. I've never been one for the rides (except for the Dodgems, the closest I get to driving a car), but I get a Lady from Shanghai  or Brighton Rock-style thrill from fairgrounds.



The roving bands of feral teenagers, the family groups, the gaudiness of the neon, the smell of candy-floss and frying doughnuts, the self-contained, secretive and self-confident culture of the fair folk.

Fairgrounds are great for photography - hyperreal colours, the rides and the people. I've never dared take shots of the most distinctive group, the Traveller and Roma teens, but there's no shortage of other material. I go back to them every year and I have a better camera and more refined technique since these were taken in 2010, but they're not too bad.

I wouldn't normally take pictures of unknown children, but the lad on the left demanded I take his photo. As I did so, his sister came along and demanded she be included: if I didn't, she'd tell everyone I was 'a paedo'. She was clearly torn between wanting to be noticed and defensiveness, and I think this shot represents that, as well as picking up on those amazing blue eyes.

This second shot is an attempt at an original take on the traditional ride photograph. It's of a video monitor focussed on the part just as the riders take a precipitous drop. The light's garish, the expressions are a mix of terror and gravity taking effect, and the colours are like something out of a Cronenberg film or Aphex Twin's 'Come To Daddy' video. Nothing about it is technically good, but the effect encapsulates the artificiality of the full-on fairground experience.