So the Levitate Music and Arts Festival in Marshfield, MA (which, out of laziness, I’ll be calling LMF from here on out) is a grassroots festival that celebrates the surf, skate, art and music community. It’s basically super chill with awesome music and awesome people. The store itself, Levitate, reminds me of Cali…but like Santa Barbara..NOT like LA. It’s a surf/skate shop with apparel. Really cute apparel, actually. Because we all know pictures are more fun than reading, here are a few practice shots I’ve done with a few Levitate models for their products.
This year the festival is 2 days long, July 8th and 9th, and guess who gets to do photography for it. Yes. You are correct. (This would be a terrible post if it wasn’t me) I totally lucked into this gig and could not be more excited. After doing some graphic design/marketing work for the amazing Katlyn Evans, owner of Red Eye Media, she got my portfolio in front of the owner and he ended up booking me. Couldn’t be more thankful to Katlyn.
Photographing the LMF
I’m so looking forward to this. I’ve never been to the LMF…I’ve always worked weekends and perpetually broke so can never take the days off. I’ve heard, however, it’s totally my vibe and I’d love it. I think my first time is going to be magical. My concentration during the LMF will be on the artisan shops and details…I’m basically there to capture the vibe of the whole event.
Tips on festival photography
I’ve been looking up tips and things to consider for festival photography lately and thought I’d share what I’ve learned. Oh and I got quite the helpful email from one of the coordinators of photographers with a list of helpful/essential gear to have for the day.
Wanderlust had some great tips like trying to create a story as you snap away.
Lexar brings up a wicked obvious, yet reminder-worthy, tip…fast memory cards!
Photoble brought up a good point about camera settings. I ALWAYS shoot in manual and RAW…but how much do you want to be looking down adjusting your ISO and shutter speed in the middle of a crowd, missing the action. I plan on shooting in aperture mode and using that ever helpful burst mode when I’m focusing on people.
There were also some pretty great tips from PictureCorrect and Manfrotto if you want to check those out.
Like all of the sites I looked at mention make it as easy as physically possible to lug your stuff around. I have one of those belts for the gym…ok call it a fanny pack if you will…to keep my phone and lens cap in, but I also got some more gear to make my life easier that day.
Helpful photography gear for festival and event photography
I got a rapid strap (Amazon) that I got to test out yesterday on a shoot that was actually in preparation for Levitate and it was so helpful. I’m predicting it being quite the help during the festival.
I also got a UV filter to fully capture the awesome sky mid-day…should Mother Nature be good to us and actually give us an awesome sky.
I’m still waiting on this rapid multi-lens changer thingy so I can carry my 85mm (the love of my life) just in case I want to switch out my 24-70mm real quick. I don’t want to have to sit, put everything down, and waste time switching lenses. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
So that’s pretty much as far as I’ve gotten in terms of preparing for festival photography. I was just thinking I might as well share my findings. Oh and another photo.
