Take professional shots of your favourite music events

Photographer Victor Frankowski has photographed many of the major music festivals and gigs – from Underage and Field Day to the Foo Fighters at Wembley. He put down his camera for a couple of minutes to reveal what it’s really like being a music festival photographer… and how to get that all-important best shot of the day

Victor’s best shots

The day
When you’re shooting at a music festival, you want to try to capture not only the music but also the atmosphere of the event. The day generally starts a couple of hours before the crowds get there when its a one day event or the day of the gates opening when its a longer festival. You pick up your accreditation at the media or press entrance and make your way to press tent. You’ll spend time looking at the brief you received from whoever commissioned you – a magazine or newspaper, for instance – and look through the running order and plan your day to cover all the bands you’ve been told to shoot.

What to shoot
It’s not just the bands you have to shoot: people and things that capture the atmosphere of a festival, such as fashion, costumes, people partying and having a good time. Events that are happening at the festival that make the festival what it is. Images that remind me of the place at that particular time.

Good festival photography, bad festival photography
While bands and people are having fun is really important at a festival, weather always the key, as its always more fun in the sun. Having access to backstage and the stage lets you also capture images you might not get otherwise (you need to get this from the festival’s PR). Rain and bad lighting on stage for me are two things that you can’t control which can make bad festival photography. Also just focusing on bands and not having any shots of the atmosphere just give you one dimension of the festival.

A dream photograph
My best photo from Underage is most likely the Pigeon Detectives from two years ago. They are a great band that move around a lot and are great to shoot. Common mistakes or things you try to avoid are microphones in front of the face – I think that’s the biggest one. Getting too much of a close up, I think people generally want to see what’s happening and get a feel for the show.

What about the kit?
You can take photos with any camera. Phone cameras are advanced enough now that you can take great snaps of you and your friends. But if you do want to start taking photographs seriously – especially at festivals – I would recommend a SLR camera with at least one good zoom lens (i.e 24mm-70mm) so you can shoot both wide and close-up shots.

It’s not all glamour…
My worst festival moment? Getting stuck without a sleeping bag at the Big Chill festival a couple of years back. Summer nights can be really cold! I also managed to sleep in and miss two rides back from Bestival last year. I guess the main thing I never realised before I started was the working hours that sometimes end up being from 8am till 2am. I do enjoy every bit of it, but I need time afterwards to catch up on sleep!

To see more of Victor’s photographs, see www.victorfrankowski.com