August 14th & 15th

On Sunday the public address system coming from from the roof tops via a local radio station announced that there was a storm coming BUT it was not going to be much and the sun was shinning on the other side of those dark clouds. Then the deluge hit which included all the usual suspects of heavy rain, blustery winds, lightening & thunder.

My booth filled up rather quickly then. I was in fact jammed with people……getting out of the storm, my card rack and about five inches of water. I was also holding the back flap of the canopy with one hand and had a death grip on a supporting canopy strut in the vain belief that I could hold it in that wind. Well the storm did pass, the sun came out, and while everything was still dripping the people came out of their holes and continued to browse without buying.

Except for being wet literally up to my knees nothing much was damaged. I’ve been going through everything today. All I’ve found so far are water spots which wide off very easily.

What a nice well organized show. They had a great shuttle service to & from the high school parking lot available at one’s whim. They had people to help by merely using a clothespin to hang a sign on the canopy front. On Saturday night they provided a picnic of sandwiches, salads, chips, and libation. The speeches were brief. The people & surroundings pleasant. There were no bugs!

There are also were very few sales. 

There is a lot of trial & some error in show selection! I’m going back to shows that worked well for me over the last two years and continue to try shows to see if they’ll be good enough. The result is that I do well enough with new as well as repeated shows, but then I’ll have a ringer which generally means it costs me more to participate than I sell. And so it goes. I’ll narrow the field along the way. I won’t be back to Brighton, with regret. 

However, good or bad if people are out and come in I enjoy talking with them. Often they are photographers or want to be so the conversations can be interesting. I get to play teacher and often learn some things myself. This weekend at Brighton a photographer came in that had made his living as a photojournalist with assignments in Sarajevo & Rwanda when life was not very good in those two locations. He told some very harrowing stories. He is retired now to less stressful work.