This weekend the Mrs. and I made our annual pilgrimage to the End Of The Road Festival at Larmer Tree Gardens in Dorset. Although children are welcome at the festival we happily deposited the loinfruits with grandparents, chucked the tent and some sleeping bags in the car and headed off down the M3. We had a great time, the weather was pretty much perfect. A little rain about 1am on Saturday morning meant the late night drunks retired quietly. I must admit I am probably getting a bit old for camping at festivals as I do like a good nights kip these days :)
The festival is pretty small by todays standards. They have a max. of about 5000 people. The first year of the festival there was less than half that there and it had a brilliant atmosphere. The bands that play are not mainstream acts either, it means that you hear music you wouldn’t normally experience live and if you don’t like it you can move on to something else around the corner.
Each year they decorate the woods that surround the stage areas. stringing the trees with miles of fairy lights and organising fairly random things. There is a library in the woods – bookshelves built around trees and places to sit and have a quiet read. There’s a few art installations along the pathways, sometimes pretty small so it’s an interesting place to walk around and take it all in. As well as the music there is a cinema tent and a comedy stage so it’s a fabulous weekend away.
I didn’t take as many photographs as I would do normally. After a summer of shooting weddings it was nice to wander around and absorb what was happening without the need to record it. That said I did of course shoot a few pics along the way (what’s a blog post without pictures)?
Here’s a few favourites:
We had brilliant weather – there were amazing photogenic skies over the festival all weekend.
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The very lovely sounds of Woodpigeon – tailor made for the sunny afternoon.
The amazing Unthanks, one of the best performances we saw.
One lovely thing about festivals is getting yourself a nice ale from the beer tent and lying comatose on the grass whilst listening to your new favourite band. It’s here I invented a new genre of photography :) photographing festival goers as they step between lifeless bodies on their way back to their little patch of turf. Well, it kept me amused for half an hour anyway. Here’s a few pics from the ground up.
I’m a huge Richard Hawley fan so I was pleased to see that him and Jarvis Cocker were performing a DJ set on the Saturday night. After a very slow start when the roadies and then the festival staff failed to get the equipment working, the two auld grandads finally got their gramaphones sorted.
With the late start, Hawley saves the day by handing out cans of Guinness – and very nice it was too.
Hawley riffles through the vinyl.
The library in the woods and the lights in the trees.
I shot a bunch of other photographs on film so I am looking forward to getting those developed. We are looking forward to going next year already. Back to work for now though.
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