Portraits of Couples, Gangs, Children, Friends, and Carnival People at California County Fairs in the Late 1970s – Design You Trust

Portraits of Couples, Gangs, Children, Friends, and Carnival People at California County Fairs in the Late 1970s

Back in the 1970s, a young man went to work for a carnival concessionaire who, each summer, took a portable photo studio on the road to county fairs across California and the west. For a few dollars, you could have a portrait-sized or larger photo of you and your loved-one to frame and put up on the wall, in only 15 minutes. Pre-digital, it was a good deal.

More: Mikkel Aaland h/t: vintag.es

But what kind of people had their portraits taken at county fairs? People without a lot of money. People who lived on the fringes. People whose life stories were written on their faces. But they wanted a record of who they were, that they could specify and dictate themselves, and they got that at the county fair.

These portraits were made by the young man named Mikkel Aaland in a portable studio that was hauled from fair to fair between 1976 and 1980. The studio was complete with darkroom and a shooting stage and it took a crew of three to run it: a shooter, a front person to handle customers and a darkroom person to develop and print the 4×5 inch negative.

“Because our prices were so reasonable, we often had lines of customers that lasted from ten in the morning to midnight,” Aaland said. “To give you an idea of our volume: on a busy day in Pleasanton, I shot over 450 portraits, averaging three people per print, meaning 1,350 mostly smiling faces.”
























If you want more awesome content, subscribe to 'Oh, Design You Trust,' our brand new Facebook page! Trust me, you won't be disappointed.

More Inspiring Stories

Finally, It's Here. A Collection Of 50 Outrageous Album Covers Ever. Certainly.
Close-Up Cuisine
Palermo Viejo: Photographer Captured Abandoned Vintage Cars in Italy
Attractive Photos from the Urban Photographer of the Year 2015 Competition
Pachimon: The Amazing Obscure Kaiju Collectible Cards From The 70's
Photographer Els Vanopstal
Photo Manipulations by Geir Akselsen
A Gallery of Amazing Vintage Photos of Ferraris in the 1970s
Beautiful Portraits Of Gorgeous Japanese Women By Kato Yasuo
The Magical Beauty Of Mushrooms Captured By Jill Bliss
An English Student’s Street Photographs of Edinburgh In the 1950s and 1960s
The Cross Sections Of Bullets In Macro Photographs By Sabine Pearlman
Amazing Vintage Color Photos Of Trailer Parks In The United States From Between The 1950s And 1960s
New Past: Impressive Double Exposure Portraits by Omi Kim
General Motors' Miraculously Surviving Electric Car Found in A Parking Lot — May Be the Last EV1 in The World
‘Flying Saucer’ Gas Stations in Kyiv From the Late 1970s and Early 1980s
Woman Uses Her iPhone To Capture Portraits Of Strangers On Her Daily Commute To Work, And The Result Is Impressive
The Fascinating Giuseppe Arcimboldo's Portraits Made out Of Fruits, Vegetables and Fish, 1563-1591
See Inside a 1926 Rolls-Royce Phantom, the Most Expensive Rolls-Royce Ever Made
Finally, 2022 Awkward Family Photos Calendar Is Here!
Gaze Into the Eyes of Animals Through Stunning Macro Shots
Stunning Entries for The International Festival of Photojournalism 2020
European Wildlife Photographer Of The Year 2019 Winners Announced
"Jewels in the Night Sea": Japanese Photographer Captures The Underwater Life Of The Ocean Creatures