Introduction to The County Fair Photograph: Rethinking the Canon

These photographs document county, independent and related agricultural fairs in central Ohio. The county fair and its highly-structured 4-H activities have historically embraced the small-town, agricultural community, and its generation-to-generation education in crop techniques and animal husbandry. Performed ritually each year, the county fair’s schedule of events are intended primarily for the participation and spectatorship of the community’s own residents.

The fine art tradition of county fair photography has, however, typically favored an outsider’s view, concentrating on the anonymous spectacle of the Midway’s flashy rides and games, and its transient carnies and out-of-town characters. Such edgy photographs, frequently shot at dusk or in the evening, overlook the founding basis of this annual county-to-county event: perpetuating local tradition in agricultural education.

The photographs comprising this series, which case a respectful lens on the timeless activities of 4-H, are intended as a counterpoint to the outsider of the Midwest county fair, I have resided nearly ten years in central Ohio and have devoted a number of years, on and off, to this study. As a by-product of the attempt to redress the representation of the county fair, these images may be read as earnest and wholesome. And yet, this is largely the tenor of the county fair and its participants. Concentrating on the enterprises of 4-H and the Junior Fair, the youth of area communities are recorded as they engage in the annual rituals of preparation, showing, judging, and awarding. The accumulative meaning of this Junior Fair activity is reinforced for fair-goers who experience the many public events of 4-H, as well as its display barns. 4-H display barns, with their assemblages of signage, text, illustration, produce, and totemic objects, complexly reveal the businesses and aesthetics of farming, the role of agricultural education in rural communities, and the inclination of civic pride and responsibility.

— Dan Younger, 2003