Photos from V Festival,wish it was a week earlier!

08/23/2005 11:55:48 AM · #1

This last weekend I had a photo pass for V Festival in Chelmsford (near London), the bands I took photos of were:

Athlete
Chemical Brothers
Dizzie Rascal
El Presidente
Estelle
Franz Ferdinand
Goldie Looking Chain
Goldfrapp
I Am Kloot
Jet
Joss Stone
Kaiser Chiefs
Magic Numbers
Natasha Bedingfield
Nine Black Alps
Oasis
Ordinary Boys
Robert Plant
Scissor Sisters
Super Furry Animals
Texas
The Hives
The LAs
The Music
The Prodigy
The Roots
The Streets
Tony Christie

and that was over just two days, the first day I left the house at 6:30am, the second I got home at 5:00am. Then I had to process 100 odd photos ASAP. Hard work, but rewarding.

Here are some of the highlights:

Tamron SP AF 28-75mm f/2.8 XR Di for Canon

08/23/2005 12:06:07 PM · #2

Forgot to say you can find more photos here:

//www.eyesopen.co.uk/VChelmsford2005

Comments welcome as always!

cheekymunky

Canon EOS-40D

08/23/2005 12:07:43 PM · #3

WOW, there are some incredible shots there, I've seen some other coverage from the festival on the net, but these really cool.!

Nikon AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 12-24mm f/4.0G IF-ED

08/23/2005 01:53:36 PM · #4

Thanks munky!
Any more? Seems fairly relevant, what with the 'live music' challenge on and all...

jbsmithana

Nikon D300

08/23/2005 02:02:14 PM · #5

Bobster you own the rock shot tiltle no matter what happens in live music! These are great shots in very difficult conditions.

jseyerle

Canon EOS-20D

Canon EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM

08/23/2005 02:05:15 PM · #6

Now those are some awesome shots!! You must have been close. What lense did you use?

JayWalk

Canon EOS-6D

Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM

08/23/2005 02:10:19 PM · #7

Ummmm... WOW!!! Those are some amazing shots.

And by the way... LOVE HER:

Mmmmmmm! The one with her drinking the water is even better! :)

Message edited by author 2005-08-23 14:12:18.

hopper

Canon EOS-80D

Canon EF 35mm f/2 IS USM

08/23/2005 02:12:01 PM · #8

These are excellent, Bob, very well done. I'm wondering if you could clue me into how you go about this type of photography:

Aperature Priority I assume?
ISO?
Multiple cameras?
zoom lenses or primes?
did you use one lens length a lot more than others, or were many lengths used throughout?
raw?
how many shots of a normal 1-ish hour set would you take?

Geo_Griffin

Panasonic Lumix FZ45

08/23/2005 02:14:22 PM · #9

Think I may of caught a glimpse of you on the V festival highlights on C4 :)

Did the bravery not play Chelmsford? The bassist atop the stack of speakers would of made a great pic :)

Love the Kaiser Chiefs,Prodigy,Scissor Sisters pics.

Geo

Telehubbie

Canon EOS-40D

Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM

08/23/2005 02:28:38 PM · #10

Wow!!! Very nice indeed! Most of us can only DREAM of getting shots like those. I for one would probably have found my way to the snack bar when Oasis came on stage though.

PaulMdx

Canon EOS-1D

08/23/2005 02:43:34 PM · #11

You rock, Bobster. Excellent work as always!

Canadian_eh

Canon EOS-450D Rebel XSi

Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS

08/23/2005 02:44:01 PM · #12

Wow, wonderfull, to some of us here a press pass is a far away dream, lol. great shots, your hard work payed off!

Tamron SP AF 17-50mm f/2.8 Di II LD Aspherical (IF) for Canon

08/23/2005 03:19:00 PM · #13

Aw, thanks guys.
I used 2 lenses... my Tokina 24-200mm for most of it, with my 75-300mm lens for about a quarter of the shots. Very cheap lenses. My shots are going to get so much better when I upgrade my glass to a couple of F2.8 fixed aperture zooms! I'm also going to try and get a second body soon, I'm looking out for some reviews of the new Minolta 5D.
I have to admit to not really being very excited about the bands, and I'm not an Oasis fan... but I made sure to keep reminding myself that many people would be glad of the opportunity. I was very surprised to find Natasha Bedingfield my favourite musical highlight of the festival... she sang a ballad that literally had me in tears as I was concentrating on getting good shots. Her voice is just incredible and wasted on her bubblegum pop songs. Incredible spirit and energy.
Other highlights for me were Jet and The Prodigy.
The Bravery did play, but good grief, look at how many bands I did manage to get!

LedZeppelin588

Canon EOS-350D Rebel XT

08/23/2005 03:25:04 PM · #14

I'm betting you the "Free Trade Stall" was actually a Fair Trade Stall... most music festivals wouldn't be championing free trade, especially comparing the two.

Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM for Canon

08/23/2005 03:36:02 PM · #15

Originally posted by hopper:

Okay, you really need to look at the Gig Photography mentor group where I talk about a lot of these issues, but I'll answer these questions briefly:

Manual metering... I'm pretty good at estimating the lighting, and I'll check the histograms every now and then.
ISO1600 when dark, using ISO3200 when necessary.
I've already mentioned about the lenses and bodies.
I shoot at the lowest quality JPEG setting, which is actually still very good quality on my 7D. Over the 2 days, I took about 2,500 shots which used about 3GB. For many of the bands, I only had time for one song before being whisked off to another band at another stage. Very intense! None of the other photographers I chatted to used RAW... in fact, loads of them used burst mode like sports photographers so this would have been totally impractical.

cbonsall

Canon EOS-350D Rebel XT

08/23/2005 04:01:49 PM · #16

cbonsall

Canon EOS-350D Rebel XT

Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM for Canon

08/23/2005 04:02:16 PM · #17

^ That was the sound of my jaw, hitting the ground.

fauxreal

Canon EOS-40D

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II

08/23/2005 04:31:59 PM · #18

awesome shots

08/23/2005 04:54:35 PM · #19

Thanks guys :-)

Simms

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

08/23/2005 05:05:59 PM · #20

OK, the question is, how did you blag the pass?? Music photography is exactly what I want to move into (I have already started at //www.the-binary-refinery.co.uk ), all I need is a break like this.. HOW HOW HOW did you get it.... GIT!

Simms

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

08/23/2005 05:06:24 PM · #21

By the way, Awesome photos!

08/23/2005 05:16:07 PM · #22

Originally posted by marksimms:

I love your website, very strong photos. I do have a pet hate of square thumbnails that don't actually let you see the whole photo, but anyway...
You surely can't be far from being able to get a pass for events like this, you just need to find a publication. There's very little money in it though.
I went to festivals as a punter last year, took a load of photos and approached The Guardian website last year, who expressed an interest in Glastonbury 2005. I emailed through the year, and got the job when the Glastonbury organisers gave me free tickets for winning their photo competition for 2004 photos. It's really important to show that you can take good photojournalistic shots of the crowd, the music on it's own can get a bit boring. Go to a festival and take as many shots of the ambience as you can, and get up to the barrier for the nobody bands at the start of the day. The next year, you'll be in the pit if they're good. Obviously, this has given me a bit of credibility and passes are easier for me to get now. However, I did V for free to bump up my portfolio... I'm still trying to figure out how to get regular money for the festivals!

Simms

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

Canon EF 24mm f/1.4 L USM II

08/23/2005 06:15:57 PM · #23

Thats great advice, thanks. Must get round to pimping myself out to the big boys for nothing :-)

tkjaer

Canon EOS-5D

08/24/2005 12:05:11 PM · #24

Really, really great work here Bob! Sorry you couldn't enter any of them. :-/

I myself had the opposite problem of you; too many photos to choose from. I ended up choosing a photo I myself really liked, but one that didn't fit the challenge as well as others would have.
Lesson learned. :-)