The Daily Heller: The Mechanics of Fun

Sean Perry is a Texas-based “atmospheric” photographer who refers to his work as “portraits of the built environment.” He captures the mood of his subjects through his mastery of light and surprising crops. Fairgrounds is a series that celebrates the mechanized play at carnival fairs. Originally published in 2008, it was recently released in a limited box set, a collaboration with artist and bookbinder Kaoru Perry.

It’s a cabinet of wonders, and includes a signed print of Crazy Dance, an unpublished photograph referenced in the late curator Clint Willour’s 2008 foreword. The photographs to my eye are shadows of my childhood, so I asked Perry about his own intentions for producing this work.

What drew you to photographing fair sites?
I grew up near a scrappy seaside amusement park. At night the fireworks would light up the rides from behind and echo them—the whole midway glowing and shaking against the sky and ocean. I was gone. Completely lost in it.

When I moved to Texas, I started seeing fairs set up in empty lots and at rodeos. Temporary worlds becoming solid and then disappearing. I wanted to make pictures about the atmosphere of those places—not document the rides, but express what they inhabit.

Were you as seduced by the post-industrial phantoms as me?
So much. They get hauled across highways and bolted together overnight—and then they awaken. You know the scene in Spirited Away when the spirit gods arrive on the ferry? That’s what it feels like. Dusk comes and something else shows up.

There’s a brief window when the sun drops behind the structures and a space opens where you slip between time. That drives everything I do. For Fairgrounds, I shoot soft and let the images drift. Edges give way, light thickens, and you can step into somewhere other. I’m chasing photographs where you look out from the inside.

Where were these shot?
Parking lot fairs, carnivals, the rodeo in Austin—across Central Texas, over several years. The late Clint Willour, who wrote the book’s foreword, described feeling as though the photographs were all made at one place at one time. He knew they weren’t—but he was naming the terrain they belong to. The sequencing and printing build a single place from scattered nights. I love the weight and sound that comes off those machines. That shake and rattle of horsepower and steel.

Do you think the classic fair is in danger of disappearing?
Yes, but I think they endure. People are still drawn to them—the scale and noise, the shared thrill of it. They are physical. You show up and you’re in it with strangers. That’s harder to find than it used to be. What makes these environments extraordinary is that they exist purely for wonder. A kid standing under a lit-up Ferris wheel at dusk discovers the same moment I did. I hope we don’t stop looking.

What would you like the viewer to take away?
The pictures belong to the viewer. The experience of making them belongs to me. If I do my part, they feel something—I want them to feel better, having seen it.

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