A simple remit when I shot the Shindig Festival, capture the story, the people here can often be more interesting than the bands. From audience members, equipment truck drivers, road crew waiting around all day, to then have a flurry to get all the cases loaded up and out, security, watchful, not only to stop access but also to rescue and pull out of the crowd those about to get hurt, the audience anticipation of a band about to come on, the cheers, fist pumping and then the moments the audience is almost blank before the next chorus.
"It must be great being a photographer at a show !". Yes and no, bear in mind any pictures you see form a large hard rock show or festival are only taken in the first three songs (two in some cases - Godsmack), a lot of photographers in what seems to be a large pit, but there might only be 2/3 great shooting spaces where there is a yard or so between monitors so there's a clump of folks. Of course great shots can be taken anywhere if a band member decides to come over the top of the monitors - but..you only have 10 minutes and that's chance so you go for whatever you can get, use experience and guile then hope for the best.
There are some shots in here showing the concert photographers life - the movement and roiling of everyone in the pit trying to get a shot, then roll out to a different position, the constant moving and changing. The more telling one is of the small photographers tent, side stage, four songs into Stone Temple Pilot's set - the come down from hanging around the pit for half an hour before show time, reserving your spot, the adrenaline rush of shooting time and now, flick through photos, the murmured "Did you get anything"..a small sharing of things deemed worthy to show another photographer and that restless feeling of I should be shooting something interesting.
As I chose to shoot the festival with my Fuji Xe-1 rather than Nikon, it's refreshing to leave the shots as they are, no cropping, just the raw framing and feeling of the event, experience what I was seeing instead of what I choose to show. There's a rawness and honesty to these that I am enjoying..
