North Carolina Chinese Lantern Festival, Winter 2019

My favorite photo from my North Carolina Chinese Lantern Festival collection. — My favorite photo from my North Carolina Chinese Lantern Festival collection.

*use the left and right arrow buttons to navigate through the photos (may take a few seconds for the gallery to load rendering the arrow keys unusable until then)

Thursday, January 3rd 2019. Drove to the Koka Booth Amphitheatre. Parked. Bought tickets. Walked in behind girl who had a camera in her book bag. Began by walking right. Saw people spinning a wheel of fortune. Walked past umbrellas. Took a few seconds to watch a performance of balance. Guy checked his watch in duration. Too fresh. Made way around other installations. Walked through tunnel of horoscopes. Overheard group of elderly friends say they couldn’t find the year 1935. Did that math. Guy had to be 83/84 depending on month he was born. Incredible. Saw 20th birthday celebration going on. Visited dragon on the pond. Stunning. Wooden walkway dumb slippery. Two girls came up to ask if I could take their photo. Saw fellow photographer taking photos of lit up swans. Rounded out to wheel of fortune. Spun it. Landed on ‘an ideal couple.’ Not what I wanted. Laughed it off. Walked behind older gentleman using a walker decked out in Chicago Bears gear. Loved the spirit. Got caught up talking to event staff outside about how convenient the weather was for the festival. Told me to take photo of welcoming gate from side to get 3-dimensional perspective. Took his advice. Walked to the Sequoia.