Prep- fest

This is yet another photo from my festival weekend! I may be over doing it slightly, but there are so many pictures that I want to upload, and this is one of them.

I took this on the Sunday, whilst waiting for the next band to come on stage. I noticed how all of the equipment for each band wasn’t put on the stage until just before they were due. This meant it was left piled up at the entrance for about 10 minutes before each set.

I liked how the tambourine was left on top of one of the drums; it made it look like it had been forgotten. I decided that it might make an interesting shot and I wasn’t disappointed! I took this picture in aperture priority, as I wanted the background to be blurred. I decided to under-expose the shot slightly to enhance the shadows.

I’m really pleased with how this photo turned out; especially as I thought it would be more of a snapshot.

Bex

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Round- up

Unfortunately, the weekend didn’t last forever and all too soon I was forced back to reality! This is the first festival that Mat and I have done, and it was amazing!

On Saturday, I spent most of my time walking around the stands and the smaller stages to see what I could find. The atmosphere was incredibly lively, with the animal themed fancy dress well adopted by most! On Sunday, I spent a lot of time on the main stage photographing dance acts. Later in the afternoon, one of my favourite unsigned bands were playing. The lead singer is quite feminine and always has flowers wrapped around her microphone stand. Before the singer came on, smoke filled the stage and the lights shone in anticipation of her arrival, making a mysterious atmosphere.

I used a starburst filter whilst taking this photo, as it cut out some unnecessary light and made some interesting effects. I was really pleased with how well this picture turned out so didn’t do any editing. It was such a good feeling to be on stage for the first time (even if the crowd weren’t cheering for me!)  Please do let me know if anyone invents a time machine...

Bex

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Final Dance

Today was, unfortunately, the last day of the festival. Bex and I once again where going around taking photos of all the events and of people generally enjoying themselves. This photo was taken at one of the indoor stages, a dance group had just started one of their routines and they invited the public to join them.

To capture the atmosphere of the dance I took the photo while they were mid-dance; I also used the flash gun to ensure that eyes were not in shadow and so I could freeze the dancer in the pose I wanted. The dancers were really enjoying themselves and I was trying to portray this in the photo that I was taking, I think I did this and captured the atmosphere of all the other people having a great time.

I didn’t edit the photo because the exposure was correct; and the photo portrayed the atmosphere of the dance, so I decided against cropping the photo down. Also because I used the flash gun I could set the white balance to daylight and not worry about needing to change the colour balance afterwards.

This weekend was a huge amount of fun, I’m so glad I went with Bex. We both had a great time and took lots of photos; so we should have plenty of photos to upload for you to see.

Mat 

Fun of the Fayre

Today was the first day of the local festival that Mat and I are covering. Mat was busy this afternoon, so I was taking photos alone. The festival doesn’t officially open until tomorrow but was open to photographers and members of the press.

 As it was the day before, most people were in the midst of setting up their stalls as I was walking around the festival site. The site itself is divided into sections, with one of those sections being a children’s zone with decorated willow arches and sculptures (as seen in the foreground of the photo). A second attraction in the family friendly zone was the giant slide!

I was trying to capture the overall fun, bright and friendly atmosphere. To do this, I decided to walk to the bottom of the hill so I could capture both the willow arches and the giant slide.

Afterwards, I increased the cyan saturation and the contrast to make the scene brighter and to make the sky more vivid. I also sharpened the image slightly to make the details more prominent. I’m looking forward to the first full day of the festival with Mat tomorrow. An early night for all!

Bex

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