Chaos festival guernsey 2023
Since around maybe 2007, I've been a regular at Chaos Festival, I’ve been designing the posters/T-shirts for them for the last 10 years or so. Chaos is a Guernsey-based music festival run by the Green Men biker group. Every year, it's a whirlwind of music, creativity, and shared goodwill.
The festival is always full of unique bands and weird acts, especially in the Peace Tent, which has become a personal highlight for me. This year, I had the pleasure of playing in two bands: The Folkadelics with Kiya Ashton and The Bear Minimum with Gregory Harrison. Performing music that you've poured your heart into for an enthusiastic audience is an exhilarating experience, and it was fantastic to share that with my fellow musicians.
In between our sets, I managed to take a few photos of the event. I've always captured music from the perspective of a musician, often using photos for promoting the next gig and documenting things as much as possible for social media. This year was no exception. However, I also handed off my camera to my partner so they could capture us while we were onstage.
One of the highlights of the weekend was watching Tantale play their new songs from the album I recorded with them. Having spent several months with them in the bunker during the recording process, it was great to see how the songs have evolved with the production and suggestions I'd made.
On the technical side, I was trialing a new mirrorless camera during the event, and while it has its quirks (the focus system isn't quite as fast as I'd hoped, which caused me to miss a few shots), I found that I still like the images it produced. Sometimes, it's the imperfections that create the most memorable moments.
However, being both a performer and a photographer presented its own challenges. It's hard to focus on two things at once, and I found that I was documenting my experience from a more personal point of view rather than a purely professional one. I didn't shoot every band, only the bands and people I spent time with. If I were shooting solely to capture the bands, the experience would have been quite different.
Despite the heat, which seemed to sap some of the energy from the crowd as everyone tried to stay cool, the festival was still a vibrant and exciting event. I got to participate in a festival that's not just part of Guernsey culture, but also a part of my own personal journey as a musician and a photographer.
