Totally Transfixed, Thailand Festival, Maidstone

Another Sunday shop day but today we decided to change the normal plan by going for our usual drink at the Horseshoes first as we had another event to go and photograph in town, the Thailand Festival in Mote Park. As I've probably mentioned before we are trying to shoot as many events in Maidstone as we can this year so that we can practice our skills and get better at composition and photographing people / street photography.
One of my photographic heroes is Tony Ray-Jones (he tragically died in the early Seventies when he was only thirty-one years old) and I've been reading about how he approached his photography to get some tips and learn about his technique. He wrote a sort of manifesto (not all of which I totally agree with!) to himself that has many salient points so here are some of them:

1 Be more aggressive (this is not really for me but he may be referring to himself rather than his actions towards other people)
2 Get more involved - talk to people
3 Stay with the subject matter - be patient
4 See if everything in the background relates to the subject matter
5 Take simpler pictures
6 Be more aware of composition
7 Don't shoot everything at eye level
8 Get in closer

They are all such good points and I think the more you practice them the less uneasy and uncomfortable you will get but, personally, I still struggle with the getting closer bit a lot. My heart rate starts to increase and I start to rush my photography too much. There is a photographer on You Tube called Lashmar (aka The Street Thief on Instagram) who takes street portraits who says the most important piece of advice is "slow down". In essence, he's trying to say accept you are going to feel uncomfortable and nervous but sit with it and try not to take your images too quickly because the results won't be as good or well composed. He's a larger than life proper geezer but his videos and images are so good so he's really worth a listen.
Anyway, back to the festival - when we got there (it was only six quid to get in) we were greeted by all the sounds, smells and colours of Thailand and it was totally transfixing. 
With my first image I wanted to capture the singer on stage but also bring in this beautiful pink tuk tuk and the boy with the balloon so I managed to get a bit closer but still think about my composition - I was really pleased with the result as I think it gives a flavour of the event from a different angle and I'd manage to get over my uncomfortableness and slow down. My second image is of another singer and these two wonderfully expressive dancers. After I had taken this shot I gave them a thumbs up and they gave me two huge smiles in return! The last image was taken at one of the clothes stalls - it was so brilliantly colourful and so I got close again to photograph the woman in the lovely sun hat through one of the bags just as the stall holder adjusted it with her hands - result!
We then realised we were really hungry so we headed to one of the many food stalls (there must have been between thirty and forty) to buy some snacks. The aromas were fantastic so we chose crispy pork and beef meatballs in a spicy sauce - both were delicious.
Soon enough it was time to leave (we still had the weekly food shop to do) but we'd had a wonderful time and both got images we are really chuffed with.