In honor of County Queens’ Day at the Indiana State Fair, I wanted to share images from my shoot with current Miss Indiana State Fair (and fellow Boilermaker), Alyssa Garnett. The primary goal of the shoot is to make the official Queen’s portrait that will hang in the HFA Building. That said, we always try to grab a few other images for fun; and over the past few years I’ve tried to capture an image of the Queen relating to the “Year of…” item the Fair is celebrating that year.

Dairy… popcorn… those are pretty easy to come up with a conceptual themed image. “Year of the Coliseum” … not so much. But, it wasn’t long before I had an idea. You see, I grew up going to the Fair. In fact, I don’t think I’ve missed one yet. One of our family traditions was to meet up at the Coliseum for the draft horse show every year. I spent a lot of time in those seats. And, I knew the Fair had preserved many of the original seats, and saved them from salvage. They even constructed an entire section of the renovated Coliseum with the original seats. Very cool! Anyway, I thought utilizing these chairs would help celebrate the heritage of the Coliseum, and the portrait itself would help to commemorate the beginning of a new era of the Coliseum.

Enjoy the photos, and enjoy the Fair! If you haven’t been yet this year, you’ve gotta check it out. It gets bigger and better every year, and there’s always something for everyone. Oh, and don’t forget to check out the newly renovated Coliseum. It’s absolutely incredible! Thanks again to the Indiana State Fair, and the Indiana State Fair Queen Pageant, for allowing me the honor of making the official Queen’s portrait. Thanks, Alyssa for being a wonderful representative of the Indiana State Fair!

Erica, my secret weapon, doing her thing. Check out her work here!

The official portrait. You can find it in the HFA Building.

Can’t forget to thank my assistant for the day, Chelsea! Yes, THE Chelsea from Bobbi’s FB posts…

Glad I got to work with another Boilermaker! Boiler up!!

And just for fun… Alyssa response to: “You can relax for a few, I’m adjusting my light for this shot.”