Maypole Dancing...

At the Annual Cuckoo Fair, Downton,

a 2000 population village on the Wiltshire/Hampshire border - and over 20,000 visitors swell the single road High Street, which is about a mile long.

I even got slightly sunburnt from the ten hours I was there, arriving (after 20 minutes boarding the bus, there were so many) at 10.30 and leaving at 8pm. The sun was warm and glorious and made EVERYTHING brilliant!

On arrival, the Procession had to be snapped and then straight to the Maypole, where this traditional May Day dancing takes place. But, however early one gets to this coloured ribbon encrusted pole - and it actually got worse throughout the day - there was still several people deep, here. The only shots that weren't going to have loudspeakers, chairs, people in front and stuff were well zoomed in ones.

THIS was pretty much I had envisaged as to what I wanted, before I even got there. Getting it though was a pain; people knocking you, hemming you in, standing in just one spot and the AF kept popping way out of focus every time a head, or a ribbon, or anything, caught the sensor's attention. Turning it off was not an option - these girls are dancing at some speed - I wanted to convey that, their grace, beauty and slight determination - and the tradition. I had the D7000 on high-drive and full marks to the camera and the Sandisk SD card for never buffering the RAW+jpegs that I was blasting off.

I also took about 20 minutes to edit this - inevitably the background was messy, despite being shot at open aperture. Getting rid of that background would have looked false and amateurish and very time consuming but I did a lot to tone it down. I even went to the trouble of lowering the colour saturation of each of their faces as I liked the bright reds of their outfits, but not their over-warm skin tones! It is the entire frame though, which is good.

I hope you like my dancing May Pole girls. It was a great day, with the Morris Dancers performing, live jazz bands, rock bands and all sorts of live music and weird performers. Gorgeous ladies wearing flowers in their hair and after the long winter, this relaxed, wonderful day felt like summer. It was as if everybody's shackles had finally been removed and with ciders called "Suicider", many had a merry old time. When you see groups of Police laughing and relaxed, you just get THAT feeling...

Lens is Tamron SP 70-300mm VC

Back with you all in the morning - shower and food much needed - when overdue attention is due to all your Journals - it's been a busy old time.