I will happily admit that I am not really a fan of music festivals, they just aren’t my thing, but when I was asked by The Moorlander newspaper if I would cover the annual two-day Chagstock Music Festival here on Dartmoor in August 2022, I was drawn to the challenge – not so much for the music and report writing side of the coverage, but for the challenge of photographing live acts performing on stage under the stage lighting. So armed with my first ever “Access All Areas” Press Pass, I drove the 7 miles down the road to Chagstock, to yes, my first ever music festival…
I really wasn’t sure what to expect, it was hardly Wembley after all, but I thought that as a local event it would be of interest to readers of the paper to have a broad selection of photographs covering not just the bands but also the variety of support people that make it all happen, and the public who attend.
Every year Chagstock has a fancy dress party theme, with prizes for the best individual or group efforts, and the theme for 2022 was ‘Summer Holiday’. Well the costumes were predictable to some extent – there was even a group of about 12 people who came along as the various parts of a London double-decker Routemaster bus, with one person impersonating Sir Cliff Richard after his 1963 film “Summer Holiday” in which Sir Cliff and his friends convert a bus into a holiday caravan and drive across Europe to Athens in Greece, with various adventures and musical songs along the way.
What struck me in particular was the talent among the many bands, who although mainly local to the southwest also included some who had driven from as far away as Glasgow in Scotland. Equally interesting was the diverse age range of those attending – from babes in arms to grandparents, and they were not just there as baby-sitters either. It was a very family-friendly event, lots of food available, spotlessly clean with continual litter patrols, and a large campsite in the adjacent field.
The fun part of the challenge for me though was the photography as I was trying out my new Nikon D850 camera for the first time, having only just purchased it the day before. It is a powerful camera, with a 45.7MP sensor capable of recording in extremely low light at film speeds of up to ISO-25600, with an extreme range from ISO-32 to ISO-102400.
The last time I photographed a live band was as a student at university, filming ‘Squeeze‘ live on stage in black and white – Ilford HP5 35mm film (normally rated at ISO-400) which I pushed to the then absurdly high speed of ISO-3200 (because I was too self-conscious to draw attention to myself by using a flashgun!) – and developed myself in the Photographic Society darkroom using Ilford ID-11 developer. The results were contrasty and atmospheric, but very grainy as would be expected. Thus I have always been a little reluctant to push my film speed too much, but even with my Nikon D800 I have had very acceptable results at speeds of up to ISO-6400.
The opening set on Friday afternoon in the dark of the Big Top Stage featured a local band, The Strange and the Beautiful. The Big Top is like a giant circus tent, so dark inside but the stage was lit with very strong coloured stage lights to give a rapidly changing light show, so quite a challenge to get the exposure right even between successive shots, and a real test of the abilities of the D850.
So having hardly read the instruction manual, and barely charged the batteries, I found myself in the pit with my new D850 and my 70-200mm f2.8 Nikon lens, wondering what to do next. I cautiously set the camera speed to ISO-3200 which seemed about adequate and not too risky in terms of film noise, allowing for a decent aperture and a fast enough shutter speed to freeze most of the action, and took my first images…
Wow! What a camera!
When I saw the first images of the lead singer Louise Coatham in my viewfinder, I couldn’t believe how sharp they were. Spot on! I used a single point focus, manual exposure mode, aimed at her head and tried to catch her face silhouetted in front of a very bright stage light shining straight at me.
I think it worked! I was thrilled by the result – every single eyelash is visible in pin sharp detail (at least on the original image that hasn’t been downsized for speed of page-loading on the website). No grain! Judge for yourself, it doesn’t get much better!
What a camera!