Back in June whilst working in my studio and listening to Radio Caroline they announced a competition to win tickets for the Cambridge Rock Festival. So I duly took a punt and lo and behold won 2 tickets. I contacted the organisers and asked if I could take my camera to capture the event which was granted and I ended up with a varied selection of images of some great bands and the many interesting characters that were there.
I sent the various bands a link to my FB page and said they were welcome to help themselves to any of the images in exchange for a credit if they used them. One band that liked my work was London based Prog Band 'The Gift' and I was flattered when I was invited to cover the Resonate Prog Festival that they were involved with at the O2 Islington.(Image above).
I was given wristband which gave me access to the photo pit at the front of the stage and a backstage pass. It was all very exciting and a welcome change from battling for pictures in the midst of a crowd. I was made very welcome and met some great people there, from various band members and crew through to fellow photographers representing various publications. It was a great experience all round, some fantastic bands playing my type of music and being able to take photo's without some 'jobsworth' steward giving me grief was sheer joy.
So a BIG THANK YOU goes out to Mike Morton frontman of 'The Gift' for making it all happen.
We also had tickets to the Cornwall Folk Festival at Wadebridge over the Bank Holiday Week End, so again I asked the organisers if I could take my camera and sent them a link to my Festival Pics on my website. I received a resounding thumbs up and ended up with some fantastic images from the week end. Eddi Reader pictured above being my favourite from the week end. And the icing on the cake was winning first prize in raffle which was an autographed copy of her latest album.
The moral of this tale is, you never know what is around the corner and what opportunities can arise from winning a competition.