When I drove towards the location for Jamnesia Fest, I initially thought my GPS was getting me lost once again. In the remote campgrounds off of Terry Road in Hillsborough, the venue for the event felt intimate and natural. I parked behind a row of cars lined up next to the road and surrounded by trees on either side and headed towards the small gravel road entrance to the festival.
I walked 200 or so feet through the woods towards the large clearing of land where I could hear rock music and see people scattered about the relaxed scenery. The event began at 2 p.m. and with 11 performances, the last act performed at 1 a.m.
There was an opening in the woods outside the main venue area set aside for camping where a dozen or so tents had been assembled and people had gotten comfortable. Lights were strung up surrounding the entire opening and framed the branches of the trees around all of the activity. A few pop-up shops were set up opposite of the main stage, including a crystal shop, clothing and jewelry shop and Chapel Hill’s own Thrill City.
I did not realize that I was going to be photographing such an intimate environment so when I arrived with a bulky 70-200mm lens attached to my camera I felt more intrusive than I have for previous assignments. I switched over to my kit lens to better blend with the scene and capture the event. My kit lens will only go down to an aperture of f5 instead of a more comfortable f2.8 with the much larger zoom lens, so I knew I would have to incorporate the lights available to work the with darker environment.
I arrived right at sunset, so I had a limited amount of time with good natural light and had to adjust my settings accordingly. Not wanting to disturb the laid-back vibes of the scene with a constant flash, I only used it once in the image of the dog next to the little wooden house for a playful image.
Lighting at the event was a dynamic element to play with in getting the most interesting shot. For many of my shots, I would focus on the idea behind what I wanted out of an image to evoke and had to be patient about not settling with my first few choices.
After taking many different shots of the same subjects in context, I was able to choose from a variety of representations of a particular image idea. The flashing, moving and colorful flights from the stage scattered about on the grass and people in the audience. This allowed me to get a range of choices and provided some brightness to otherwise dark images.
I spoke with Robert Curington, pictured spray painting the communal structure located on the outskirts of the concert venue. People had already covered the walls with their contributions, and Curington was nice enough to tell me about the golden sail he is pictured painting.
The large hanging light bulb was a cool factor to work with, getting his face illuminated. I moved around, talking to the different shop owners and concertgoers, eventually making my way to the front stage to get a photo of the band.
Due to the intimacy of the event, I was able to get right up next to the band members where I usually would be restricted to a certain position farther away from the subjects. The blue stage lighting brought the musicians out of the dark backgrounds and their cigarette smoke added to the overall mood of the image.
MaMaDuke’s food truck was parked at the entrance of the festival and was too tempting to resist before heading home. Several people were huddled around the truck, socializing and waiting for their names to be called to receive some warm food. I loved the way the inside of the truck was fully illuminated and the people surrounding the truck were dark outlines in contrast to the truck, so I tried several different approaches to the food truck image. I lowered my ISO even though it was completely dark outside to get a more accurate depiction of the action inside of the food truck.
The air was crisp and the moon was bright on this chilly October afternoon and evening. Fallen leaves, big trees and relaxed people set the perfect stage for the communal atmosphere of the event and provided a temporary home for many festival attendants. Working with minimal natural light and having to incorporate the lights that were already present with just my kit lens was an engaging challenge that resulted in a nice mixture of photos.
Jamnesia Fest was a warm welcome to the fall season and provided a homemade escape from day to day life with good food, clothes and scenery shared by a close community of music lovers.
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