Festivals ‘Through the Lens’

Through the Lens is a project which will enable event organizers to include photography within their event, with a number of benefits including professional standard photographic coverage of your event, workshops for your participants, an exhibition and local and national publicity opportunities before and after your event.  Whilst the delivery of Through the Lens is flexible, the project is well thought out. It can be tweaked to suit any particular circumstance and not all of the objectives or potential needs to covered the first time around.  The starting point is the decision to run a ‘Through the Lens’ and to be open to some new ideas for using photography in your event. Most festivals will already have existing relationships with their own photographers and Through the Lens will work with any of your own photographers.

Over the years tens of thousands of photographs will have been taken at festivals and other events throughout the country.  Many of these photos will have been displayed, but the vast majority will remain hidden in drawers or cupboards only seen by the photographer themselves or close family and friends.  Like wedding photographs, event photographs are good to see at the time but they become really important years down the line.  There are some important archives out there, although a better description might be potentially important archives.  I won’t bore you with the old chestnut “If a tree falls in a forest but nobody heard it, was there a sound?”, rather I will say that good photos deserve to be seen.  On a good day I will even go as far as to say we owe a duty to posterity to effectively document our cultural activities.

In common with many other photographers, I, Pete Heywood, have taken photographs at events over many years.  Not all of them were great photographs, but because photography has been a serious hobby of mine, the standard usually ranges from at least ‘good’ to occasional excellence.  There are lots of good photographers out there – and many who could be good with some training , experience or simply opportunity.

The basic concept:

• The event decides to include a photographic element and agrees to properly facilitate a Through the Lens project:  Some of the photographers will be enthusiasts who have spent thousands of pounds on equipment, others may be fully professional.  Often they will give of their talents freely, but you need to value their input.  Rules such as ‘First three songs only’ are not helpful.  If the photographer is too distracting, their presence is not appropriate at any time, but as with everything the trick is to find the balance.  The ‘workshop’ element of the project will include guidance and support so that less experienced photographers will not be intrusive.
• Ideally there will be a teaching element and something for local and visiting photographers.  For local people the project would be advertised as an opportunity to be involved and there would be a briefing session before the event.  At the start of the event there would be an initial briefing meeting and then a couple of sessions at the start and end of each day for feedback, review and planning.  Some of the less experienced photographers might be paired up with an expert or operate as a workshop group.
• The basic aim is to create an accessible archive for the future.  Individual photographer’s rights will be respected but the intention is that photographs will be available on request for ‘group’ use.  Outcomes are likely to include an online exhibition, some form of physical exhibition at the event, a local exhibition to help publicise the event for the following year and use of some photographs on a wider basis so that exhibitions at other events can display a mixture of national and local photography.

Sponsorship and funding: 

Through the Lens is currently sponsored in kind by The Living Tradition but to develop its full potential it will be appropriate for the Festival to consider applying for some project funding through various channels such as an Awards for All grant.  The participative nature of the project makes it an attractive project for a Lottery Award.  The project might also be funded as part of the festival’s marketing budget.  Good quality photography will result in enhanced press coverage and might be an essential element in reporting back to your funders and sponsors.