How To Shoot Music Festivals

Pro music photographer Tracey Welch documents her shoot of Download 2019 to bring you the ultimate guide to capturing all the fun of the festival…

- Sarah Barlow

For anyone who loves music and photography, festivals offer the most fantastic opportunity to completely immerse yourself, enjoy a personal, cultural experience and come away with a diverse portfolio of shots that effectively tells your festival story.

Of course, there’s a huge amount of onstage action, and with light and weather continually changing, that presents its own challenges, but then there are all those other aspects of this unique microcosm.

The energy, the banter, the weird-and-wonderful festival-goers and the side-shows of costumes, crowd surfing and random mud wrestling all add depth and colour to the circus that is festival life.

Over the course of two or three days there can be a lot of waiting around, but equally it can be incredibly frantic and if you’re not ready to go for the shot – in a split second – you might miss the moment that completely defines the whole event. At the end of the day it’s those shots that can set you apart and raise your profile as a photographer.

While most of the images here have been taken at Download 2019, the approach would be the same for the majority of festivals – even the non-music variety – where stage performance is the main attraction.

In this guide, we’ll take you through everything you need to be festival-ready, from planning and prep to technical tips on how to use your kit to maximum effect and handle the majority of variables… not least the inevitable rain!

PREPARATION