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Jeremy Hack: Green River Catfish Festival Day 2: A Photo Journal
These are my experience-based accounts of day 2 of the 2016 Green River Catfish Festival.
I arrived home sometime around 10:30pm on the first night of the festival. I had only 316 photos to sift through, so the process of transferring the files to my external hard drive was relatively quick. I edited on photographs until roughly 1am when I decided to sleep for the night.
The following morning I woke at around 9am. I was disappointed to discover that I had ran out of coffee filters, so I retrieved a Monster energy drink from the refrigerator and finished the photo editing. Sometime before noon, I had completed the photo edits as well as the writing on my journal entry from the night before. I left my home to run errands in Bowling Green. En route from Bowling Green, a familiar feeling struck me. I should have been at the catfish festival since the break of dawn. I should have gotten a time-lapse video of the sun rising over the Ferris wheel along with slow motion footage of the vacated carnival grounds. Maybe I could assemble the camera crane and get some cinematic shots of visitors arriving. I looked to the sky over the Natcher Parkway; "Oh goodness" I thought. What if it rains? If it rains, I won't get any memorable shots of community members because everyone will leave. I won't be able to hold my end of the deal and obtain the stunning footage that these people will hold dear for years to come. "Plus you've been out lolligagging in Bowling Green. Do you want people to think you've lost your touch? Don't you care about the Catfish Festival at all?" Then I snapped away and reminded myself, "You're not doing video this year. It's not that serious. You are a photojournalist at this event. You take photos."
I arrived at the festival sometime between 1:30 and 1:45pm. Because I had arrived later than the previous day, the parking spot I had been granted was less than desirable. The location at which my car had been parked was highly inconvenient for me to make frequent trips and swap the gear loadout. I was faced with a tough decision, as I wouldn't be making frequent trips to the car.
I knew that we were several hours from nightfall, so I opted to equip myself with the 5D body, the 70-200 f/2.8, and the Sigma 10-20. I left the tripod and the Rokinon 35mm in the car. I assumed that when the sun began to set that I would need to return regardless to exchange my sunglasses for my traditional glasses. At that time, I could also adjust my loadout accordingly.
Not to in any way insult the festival, but it was made obvious rather quickly that I had arrived far too early. The vast majority of the booths were desolate, with only fold-up chairs and plastic tables lining the interior of lowered tents.
The scene reminded me of the sheer isolation that I sometimes experience in my creative work. Everything is there; yet some things simply haven't come to fruition. The tents stood as a testament to the passion and dedication to the causes of each organization. Perhaps I thought too much into it. An empty vendor stand nearby also stood to represent a mans desire to travel about and experience his life. I had been watching him the previous day, and his face spoke to me. He was uncertain and troubled. Perhaps he wasn't getting enough business, or perhaps it was something else. Maybe a combination of the two.
Regardless, this mindset of isolation carried me to a more remote place, mentally and physically. I was reminded of a feeling that many artists experience in their work; isolation. Occasionally artists will feel as if they do not belong. Not that they are too good to belong, but simply because they feel that they don't. I recalled having two separate artistic visions of the festival some years ago which coincided with my feelings of isolation. In the visions I would find myself at just the right physical distance to receive the perception of normality, yet too emotionally distant to interact and truly ascertain the completion of it. The places were the baseball field on the hill at the park, and the amphitheatre. I thought to myself, "Well, there isn't anything going on right now. Why don't I put myself into my own shoes?" So I made the journey from the midway to the baseball field atop the hill, and it was very gratifying. To me, this experience was not only a true testament to, but a visual representation of a very, very real feeling that we artists experience.
Following this, I proceeded to the amphitheatre opposite the baseball field and across the park. I had missed the morning pageants due to my writing and editing, which made for a sobering experience. Not a soul was present there aside from me. Lawn chairs sat empty along the seating area, with a decorated arch at the center of the stage. Helium-filled balloons were tied to small ballasts, waving in the wind.
Having had enough of my reveling in the artistically cliché, I arrived back at vendor's row, where I again conducted a walk of the grounds to see what had changed. Walking past the tents, I encountered two of my friends walking as well. Dustin Collins and Josh Bogard, who were both exceedingly talented musicians. I had spent time with them, and we had many conversations about music and art. I shook their hands and we carried a short conversation before parting ways. I looped upward onto the midway to discover that the visitors hadn't yet arrived. On my way off the midway, I was stopped my Ms. Maddie Cardwell, who was the first person this year to request me to make her photo.
I made my way back to the first pavilion to wait for the Dustin Collins show to begin. Josh sang a few songs to open, then the show began. Shortly after the concert began, It was drawing time for the Miss Butler County pageant, so I moved to the amphitheatre once again.
This is an opinion article and a personal journal, therefore I'm free to express something that I haven't before explained. When I began my career, I didn't enjoy pageants to even the slightest degree. It was too similar to assembly line work. The contestants made the same walk path, and I'd take photos like a programmed machine. I never had any additional motivation to make photos aside from it being my contractual obligation to do so. However, today I found that I enjoyed photographing the pageant. After working in the community for a few years, I was now familiar with many of the contestants and their families. It started to feel more personal, as I knew that I was giving something back to them through my photos.
The rain couldn't decide if it wanted to be or not to be. Fortunately, it remained an erratic drizzle for the duration of the pageant and didn't open into a torrent. The drizzle made for interesting lighting and atmospheric conditions in the photos.
At the end of the pageant, It was perhaps 6:30pm, and the livestock show had began a bit earlier. I quickly walked from the amphitheatre to the Eva J. Hawes facility at the far end of the park aside the soccer field. Fortunately Mr. Drake was present and was able to inform me that I had only missed very little of the livestock show.
Though I've not spent much time on the farm in my life, it was an interesting cultural experience to be in the vicinity of people who lived this lifestyle. I was a bit nervous around the animals, seeing as I've spent so little time around them in my life. It was interesting to see small children bravely herd animals around the arena. One small girl kept glancing at the camera and smiling for her photo to be made. Truly adorable. A small boy was playing in the dirt next to the fencing. It reminded me of myself at his age playing in the dirt at what was then Soggy Bottom Speedway.
Sometime during the livestock show, I departed the Eva Hawes complex en route to the first pavilion to photograph Snake Blood Remedy. I ran into a good friend of mine, Mr. Adam Williams who was also a professional photographer, there on his own time to enjoy the festival with his cameras. We probably spent a solid 90 minutes discussing all things photograpy. It was a great conversation. In the conversation I had expressed my social anxiety and the troubles I have with photographing people in public areas. Adam and I made photos of Snake Blood Remedy before moving to the midway, which was now bustling with a multitude of visitors following nightfall.
This was when the best part of the night began. I now had a fellow photographer with me, and that moral support enabled me to feel more empowered to do my job and go crazy with photos. We bounced to nearly every ride in the park and photographed everything we could see. It's what I call being on fire. We found the Mind Winder to be the most challenging, as the lighting was quite dim, and the local rotational movement coupled with the global rotation about the central axis made for erratic motion.
We had just finished photographing this ride when another good friend of mine approached me, Ms. Karson Inscoe. The previous night at the festival, Karson had greeted me and I felt that I rudely brushed her off. She had been with a group of friends and because of this my social anxiety simply didn't allow me to talk with her. I gave myself a pretty hard time over it.
She had now approached me separate from her group, stating that she was actually looking for them but wanted to say hi. We carried a short conversation about some upcoming projects before we parted ways. Though it was perhaps coincidence, I found it to be a very noble and considerate gesture on her behalf to approach me in a situation in which she knew that I was free of anxiety.
Adam and I talked for a brief moment before we decided to wrap it up. We shook hands and headed away in opposite directions. I had gathered 1,080 photos over the course of the day and my memory card was nearly full. Walking past the Ring of Fire, I encountered a small group who requested me to make their photo. Merely feet away from this, I encountered Maddy Murphy along with Chloe Flener and two others whom requested a photo. At this time I felt that I was really doing well socially. With that being the case, I prepared to leave the festival with 1,100 photos on the camera and a good mindset.
Please stay tuned for my next journal entry. Thanks for reading!
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