Stories from the Jousting Arena
In July I went to the Bristol Renaissance Faire and loved it. I spent the whole day there and took over 1,000 photos. I spent most of my day at the jousting arena because each show had the same elements but each was different. I could do another post on the renaissance faire outside the jousting arena. Let me know in the comments if that is something you would want me to do. I am throwing in an extra photo because I couldn’t decide which ones to cut out.
Check out the 6 photos above. I felt like I was on a movie set at one point and I think the photos resemble one. I would love to work on a movie set but I don’t have any idea how to do that. If you do and can let me know how I would be grateful. So let's step up into the jousting arena.
I got to the arena a couple minutes early before the first show and came across this knight working out on of the horses. If I remember correctly the horse was newer to this troupe and he was getting the horse used to the arena. I love how majestic both the horse and knight look. The knight looks super serious and mean in this photo but was actually quite nice. When He made he got closer to me he smiled and said hi to me. We had a super quick conversation before he continued.
There were two teams, the red and the blue one. I happened to be on the side of the red team and the knight came over to get the crowd pumped up for his fellow knight. If you look at the faces of the blurry faces in the crowd you can tell not everyone is paying attention. He was able to get people more engaged and cheering for the red knight about to joust.
In this jousting tournament the red team one a part of the Queen’s court(which if you look in the right corner you can see them) was congratulating them on their win. I caught the knight mid bow. I like this photo but I wish I had moved my camera slightly to the right to get more of the Queen’s court in the background. I also wished I opened up my aperture to show more of the people in the court.
I went to photograph other things going on around the faire and get a bite to eat before returning to the next show of jousting. I sat down on the red side again because I could get the angel I wanted without being in a bunch of peoples way. Since I was sitting this go around I was able to see the foot wear of the knights. I thought about getting that shot but at the moment I thought that I didn’t have a good angel for the shot. I almost missed this moment when it came and I’m so grateful that I didn’t. It’s one of my favorites.
I got this moment right after the jousting was done and the score was being added up. The knight that had just finished jousting handed over his helmet to his fellow knight and team mate to put up. I love how you can see the detail of the helmet. It looks like he is trying to show it off to me. I love how the sun shines off of the metal of the armor and helmet.
I was going to go to another show that was near the jousting arena. I wasn’t planning on going back to the jousting arena but the show I was going to hadn’t started yet. So I decided to catch the tail end of the show. The blue team was declared the winner and the red team didn’t like that. Team red decided to steal the metal the blue team had one and then it became a fight to the death. It didn’t end very well for the red team since they both died. I love how I caught the fake blood spraying everywhere and how I caught the blue knights celebration. My hands down all time favorite way to end the day. I didn’t think I caught the blood when I looked at the back of my camera but I was so excited to see it when I got it on my computer.
I would love to know if you would like to see other photos that I took from the Bristol Renaissance Faire. Which photo or photos did you love and why? Let me know any thoughts you have on the post in the comments below.