WWC: Guest Blogger

Please welcome my son, Josh, who has agreed to be my Guest Blogger for the Weekly Words Challenge. We’ve been toying with Photoshop and ACDSee to see what we could come up with for this week.

This week’s words are Black and Strange
thanks to Tink over at Pickled Beef.

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I’m one of those people who can get knee deep in something just by walking by it. Last night, I walked by the computer here and saw my mom fighting with good old Microsoft products trying to tweak on some pictures… I had one word: Photoshop. But by that time, she was already so frustrated in messing with what programs she had to work with, that we just decided to watch Transformers the Movie instead and try again another day.

So today after dinner, the time came for her to come here and enjoy what I call her ‘zen place’. I didn’t even know she blogged until three days ago, and I see over a year of blogging here. But we sat together for a moment while she thought about what to write. Something about a “Word Challenge” that she has every week here. Spying over her shoulder, I couldn’t gather much, so I started poking and prodding. What words? What’s the challenge? Then she explained that in a nutshell she uses her pictures to say her words. She said the words were “black” and “strange”, and I thought to myself “piece of cake”… Yeah, I was wrong but I took a crack at it anyways.

I think she’s mentioned that I work for a carnival before. I have always been attracted to the massive machinery, the flashing lights, the enormous crowds, and as you may already know, that MUSIC! Nothing else in the world is like this experience to me, to be out on the midway. So I thought, well maybe I have some pictures she could use, and off into my collections I went.

We dug through about 1500 pictures to settle on a few. What I came up with are some of my own images, along with a couple that were given to me by some friends I have in the business. This is my attempt at meeting the challenge, so go easy on me.

This is a Chance Yo-Yo amusement ride. The picture was taken a couple years ago in Crown Point, Indiana at the second largest county fair in the state. I stepped foot on my first carnival midway at this very spot, and it changed my life forever. The picture was taken at night, but there were lots of other lights around. It was a fluke that all I wound up with was a picture of the lights of the ride sticking out of the complete darkness as if suspended in mid-air.

This is an Eli Bridge Co. Eagle 16 (Signature Series) Ferris Wheel. This picture was taken by a friend of mine from Evansville, Indiana. The ride was setup at the second largest street festival in the country next to Mardi Gras known as the West Side Nut Club’s Fall Festival. I used Photoshop to create some filter effects.

This is a Hrubetz Paratrooper which has been in the family of the company I work with for over two generations now, and is still going strong. Here, I took a night picture of the ride and ‘Photochopped’ it into this strange optical illusion.

This picture just struck me. How ironic can it really be that the stop light is red, and the ride is parked at the top in ‘suspense’. This action is usually a great thrill to the riders because the next thing to come is FULL SPEED from a dead stop while hanging upside down. This is a Larson Mfg. Ring of Fire.

This video shows the STRANGEST thing I have ever laid eyes on. It was sent to me by a showman who is operating with his company in China. I have been told that this HUMAN POWERED FERRIS WHEEL really exists and is not some kind of ‘movie magic’. Are you brave enough?

I couldn’t help but add this last picture. I wanted to show just what I meant by largest street festival. You can just barely make out the carnival rides that are 11 city blocks away. This entire street is filled with food vendors. In the distance you will see the top of a 90 foot tall Chance Gondola Wheel and the Ring of Fire that was pictured above.

I hope you enjoyed this little tidbit from my world. Over the years that I’ve spent traveling the country with the amusement business I’ve seen many strange things. I just wish I had those pictures to share too. Like the black of night that settles across the midway when the generators shut down at the end of the day, now comes the close of my submission to my mom’s blog. Thanks for welcoming me here!