It was a sunny afternoon at the village fair – one of those days when time seems to move a little slower, the air smells like bratwurst, and the soundscape is a mix of laughter, carnival music, and squeaky rides. I was strolling through the lively crowd with my cameras when I stumbled upon the shot of a lifetime: An elderly lady, just about to deliver a majestic lick to her ice cream. The way she leaned over the frosty scoop was almost reminiscent of a proud bird of prey swooping in on its catch. But the true highlight of the photo would only reveal itself in the background.

Behind the ice-loving granny stood a man selling what were probably the most dazzling helium balloons in the universe – and in a pose that made it seem like he had been plucked straight out of the 1980s and dropped into our present day. His curly mane and mustache looked like they had been styled by the same hairdresser who made Magnum so iconic. But it wasn’t just his outfit that made it seem like someone had shifted into reverse in a dusty time machine. No, the whole scene screamed "Back to the Future."

You’d half expect Doc Brown and Marty McFly to come screeching around the corner in a DeLorean at any moment, warning us of the dangers of too much cotton candy. As the woman licked her ice cream and the balloon vendor stood there, greeting the world like he was from another era, I couldn’t help but wonder: “Have I landed in a time loop?”

It was as if, with a simple click of my camera, I had opened a window to the past. Maybe that’s the secret of these village fairs: sometimes, when you capture the right moment, you can really travel through time – or at least feel like everything is somehow just the way it used to be.