I'll be honest — music photography has ruined my ability to enjoy a show without a camera in my hands. I watch every performance biting my lip or quietly cursing to myself: damn, that would've been a great shot. Fortunately, festivals are one of my favorite ways to work. They're how I discover new music, reconnect with photographers whose names I've absolutely forgotten since the last time our paths crossed, and just… people-watch.
Bunbury 2019 was the most comfortable and confident I've felt shooting a music festival yet. No interviews this time — just me and 32 bands across three days. It rained, which pushed back a few sets, but it also gave everyone a break from the sun.
The best part? I can happily report that I didn't lose a single photo card. My batteries didn't die. I didn't get caught in the downpour with exposed gear. And I didn't lose my car keys in the muddy pit. That's all behind me now, right?
That boring little list is exactly why I'm filing this one under event photography and not just "concert photos." When you hire someone to cover an event, the creative eye is only half of it. The other half is the unglamorous stuff — backups, spare batteries, a plan for weather, keeping track of your keys — that guarantees the photos actually make it home. Anyone can get lucky once. Doing it reliably across three rainy days is the job.
The bands
Beyond the acts I showed up specifically to shoot, Bunbury handed me a few new favorites. Poppy and Bülow both earned spots on a couple of my Spotify playlists. Run the Jewels are, without exaggeration, the coolest band on Earth. And Reignwolf… wow.
What shooting a festival taught me about event photography
A music festival is event photography on hard mode. The light changes every fifteen minutes. There are no second takes — miss the moment and it's gone. You're reading crowds, anticipating where the energy is about to spike, and covering a huge amount of ground on foot, usually in weather that wants to kill your gear.
Those are the exact instincts I bring to anything I cover — a concert, a corporate event, a fundraiser, a festival — whether it's here in Columbus or anywhere else in Ohio. Staying calm in the chaos, seeing the shot a half-second before it happens, and protecting the work no matter what the day throws at you: that's the difference between a nice photo and coverage you can actually count on.
If you've got an event coming up and you want it documented by someone who's genuinely comfortable in the middle of it, here's my Columbus event photography page.
I also wrote a full, deliberately entertaining review of Bunbury — rating every band on music, presence/fashion, energy, performance, and coolness factor. You can read the write-up here.
And if it's the music side you're after, more concert and festival coverage lives over at A Trillion Souls.