Six Photographers, Six Stories from the Colorado State Fair
Feature photo © Jim Schoedler
Put six photographers in the same place on the same day, and you’ll get six very different stories.
That was one of the ideas behind the Visual Storytelling workshop I recently taught through the Colorado Photographic Arts Center (CPAC). After an initial classroom session exploring how individual photographs can work together to create a narrative, we headed to Pueblo for a full day of photographing at the Colorado State Fair.
Rather than trying to photograph everything, each photographer ultimately found a theme or perspective that became the foundation for their visual story. What I enjoyed most was seeing just how different those stories became, even though we were all walking through the same fairgrounds at roughly the same time.
Special thanks to the Colorado Photographic Arts Center for offering the workshop and to all the photographers for letting me share their stories.
Heejin Ryu — Horses
Heejin Ryu focused her story on the horses and the people surrounding them. Her photographs explore a quieter side of the fair, away from the bright lights and midway attractions, concentrating instead on the animals, riders, preparations, and details of the equestrian world. Together, the photographs tell a focused story about one small but distinctive part of the much larger State Fair experience.
All photos © Heejin Ryu
Gayle Nosal — Pink at the Fair
Gayle Nosal found a visual thread in one of the fair’s most noticeable colors: pink. Once she began looking for it, pink appeared throughout the fairgrounds in clothing, signs, food, decorations, rides, and unexpected details. Her series shows how choosing something seemingly simple can create a cohesive collection of photographs while encouraging you to notice connections you might otherwise walk right past.
All photos © Gayle Nosal
Jim Schoedler (Instagram @jimschoedler) — Fair Vignettes
Rather than limiting himself to a single subject, Jim Schoedler created a collection of vignettes from around the fair. His photographs capture individual moments, characters, details, and scenes that together build a broader portrait of the day. It’s an approach that demonstrates how a visual story doesn’t necessarily need a narrowly defined subject—as long as the images share a consistent point of view and work together as a collection. Here are a few of his vignettes.
All photos © Jim Schoedler
All photos © Jim Schoedler
All photos © Jim Schoedler
Pavel Belits — Overwhelmed
Pavel Belits approached the fair through the idea of being overwhelmed. The Colorado State Fair is packed with competing sights, sounds, colors, people, signs, rides, and activity, and his photographs embrace that feeling of there being too much happening. The resulting series captures the sensory intensity of the fair and shows how a photographer can use composition and layering to communicate a feeling rather than simply document a place.
Paviel Peña — Bored at the Fair
Paviel Peña looked in almost the opposite direction. Instead of concentrating on the excitement and spectacle, his theme became “Bored at the Fair.” He went old school and shot film, so I don’t have anything to share from his time shooting, but he said he really enjoyed the experience.
McCory James — Carnival Energy
For my own series, I focused on the energy that such a key part of the fair carnival. I wanted to capture both the energy and movement of the rides and, more importantly, the emotions and feelings of the people experiencing them. I combined wider photographs showing the motion and excitement of the rides with close-ups of faces filled with laughter, apprehension and joy. Together, the images tell the story of the carnival not just through what the rides look like, but through how it feels to be on them.
What Story Will You Tell?
The most interesting part of this project wasn’t simply seeing the photographs everyone created. It was seeing how differently each photographer interpreted the exact same place.
Pink. Horses. Small vignettes. Feeling overwhelmed. Boredom. Carnival energy. All of those stories existed simultaneously at the Colorado State Fair. The photographer’s job was to recognize one, develop it, and decide which photographs best communicated that idea.
If you’d like to learn how to move beyond individual images and develop your own photographic voice and visual stories, take a look at my photography workshops. We work on composition, light, seeing more intentionally, and storytelling so you can create photographs that communicate your experience rather than simply record what was in front of the camera.
If you want to put those skills into practice while exploring somewhere new, join me on one of my photography tours. These small-group experiences combine travel, photography, and hands-on instruction, with future trips planned throughout Colorado, the United States, and beyond.
And if you’re looking for more individualized attention, I also offer one-on-one travel photography coaching, either online or in person. Coaching is tailored specifically to your photography and can focus on composition, storytelling, image selection and editing, technical skills, or even preparing photographically for an upcoming trip.