I volunteered to be on the photography team to photograph the Uprise Festival, which is a Christian Music festival in Shippensburg PA. As primarily a wedding and portrait photographer, the festival provided me an opportunity to work on my photojournalism skills, and as a regular attender at this festival, as a photographer I was allowed all access so I could get wherever I needed to be for the photos.
This photo was of the lead singer of the band, Skillet, which teams a great show with inspiring lyrics, and they sing with purpose and passion which was conveyed in this image. I titled the image simply “saved” because of the prominent message on the tattoo on his arm. I chose to present this photo in black and white because it would eliminate the color distractions and focus on the expression, motion, and passion in this photo. I was using Nikon D750 with Nikon 80-200 lens, and the capture was 1/250 at f4 and ISO 800.
To photograph this event I contacted the staff member that was in charge of media/ photography and expressed my interest in being on the photography team. The photographers for the event were a mix of professionals, students and photography enthusiasts that just did photography for fun.
At a large festival with several stages many photographers were needed. My assignment was the main stage events, crowd/ people images and anything else that represented what was happening at the festival and would be a good image for their marketing purposes.
Camera settings varied because the full day festival brought lots of different lighting situations. I always photograph on manual settings to get best control of my images. During the afternoon I focused on the crowd/ people photos as well as the musicians on stage. After dark, I was photographing at a higher ISO and keeping my shutter at 1/250 to sharply capture movement on the stage. I watched the patterns of the stage lighting to capture the best lighting on the musicians.
I would capture the images when there were white lights or something other than intense colors only like blue or green on the faces. We were allowed all access to the grounds so I photographed from several areas for a variety of images. I made sure to capture some images capturing the crowd and would wait for the stage lighting to be directed at the crowd for these.
I also was able to get in the front right next to the edge of the stage and even got to go on the stage to capture some images looking out toward the audience from behind the performers. What the festival was looking for was a variety of marketing images to advertise the festival for the next year and for their social media. Since this was a public event there were no model releases needed. I did have to sign a contract with the organizer that they had rights to use my images for their publication and marketing.
As a volunteer for the event we were given free admission, and they did a nice job with food tents for the volunteers and a media trailer where we could keep camera bags and laptops. I had a great time photographing this event and it was a fun experience.
Although I had a lot of great images from the event, I was excited that the one I chose to enter that best embodied the spirit of the festival was chosen for several awards. Whether a concert, wedding or portrait session, my goal is to create images with emotion and that tell as story, and I am thankful that this is conveyed in this image.
This image went Image Excellence award at PPA’s IPC competition and was a Silver sealed image in Master Photographers International’s IIC competition. It also received a merit at our PPA of PA state convention.
Documenting a live event was a lot of fun and a lesson in watching for the perfect timing to capture the image at the best moment of action and expression. As a wedding photographer, I am quite familiar with capturing all the reception activities, so I was prepared for capturing this festival. I learned to watch the fluctuations of the stage lighting to see the moments when it best lit the subject and added to the artistic effect of the image.
