A little (absolutely huge) hometown gig for me here! The Isle of Wight festival is in my home county of Hampshire, just a short ferry ride over to an island that has become synonymous with incredible festivals and rightly so. After nearly being a victim of it’s own success back in the 70s, the Isle of Wight festival was revived in 2002 and has been going strong ever since. I headed to the 2018 event on behalf of REX and Shuttestock to capture some of the action.
This year was a particularly cracking affair, the weather was gorgeous throughout, World Cup fever had upped the vibe to epic levels and the line up was a masterpiece – Depeche Mode, Liam Gallagher, Kasabian, Nile Rogers and Chic, Rita Ora, Camilla Cabello, Hurts, Sheryl Crow, The Script and on and on….
One thing I absolutely love about festivals like the Isle of Wight is the individuality it brings out in people and how much people are encouraged to just let themselves go wild and celebrate it. From comedy costumes to face paint that must have taken hours, to those just turning up in what they knew they’d be comfortable in to have a bloody great time – no judgement, no uniform, just a bunch of music loving folk having the time of their lives. I did only wonder about the downsides in turning up in a Chewbacca costume as temperatures edged towards the 30s haha.
Photographing a festival is always tricky, you’ve got the sheer size of the place followed by the big line ups with headliners on different stages, giant crowds of which all deserve some of the spotlight pointing at them and then you have to position yourself where the light works best or have to tackle the downpours (thankfully not this time). However, I’m really happy with how my images came out, I think they portray the atmosphere perfectly, show how much of a good time the acts where having and being able to capture the celebrations by the football supporters was particularly special this year!
Loved my time there, felt like I needed to sleep for a week when I got home and came back sporting some attractively odd tan lines! See you in 2019 IOW 🙂
