The Rush

I was going to take a quick drive before the wife & wean arrived back late from Wexford. I had criminally stayed indoors all day (when the weather was unusually fine) and the evening was gorgeous. Then my cousin P told me that there was a fair in Bray. So I headed there, my rear-view getting gold-plated from the intense, slow-burn sunset.

I never much liked circuses or fairs as a child (except in horror stories, 'Something Wicked This Way Comes' etc.), but I rediscovered them as a photographer. It's all been done to death of course. But I still like wandering around the edges of these things, watching for little movements or spontaneous arrangements of bright zingy lights and cool shadow.

This one was on the beach of course (everything tends to the beach in Bray) and it was better than usual, nicely spread-out near the prom, like a series of perfect backdrops or thresholds (the ferris wheel, the 'Power Shot' bungee-capsule, the roller coaster...), with the darkening sea or roof-silhouettes with plum-coloured flitters of cloud behind them. I could have stayed for hours, but my card filled up, my battery was low and my family were returning and I had to leave.

Here's three more, different views of The Power Shot (the pod itself reminds me of the space craft in the Jodie Foster film 'Contact'):

ULTIMATE EXPERIENCE
ULTIMATE EXPERIENCE 2
THE POD