Community events make up a big portion of what I do as a photographer; not only do I love working with community organisations, but my natural, documentary style photography is perfect for capturing so many different kinds of events - both in Bristol and beyond! With the Pride Comic Art Festival 2024 all wrapped up and the photos delivered, now seems like a good time to look back on my work from this year's event; if you're thinking of booking me to capture your event, this post will give you a great idea of how I tend to work!
For those who haven't encountered PrideCAF before, it stands for the Pride Comic Art Festival, and is an annual event which brings together and showcases LGBTQ artists from all over the UK. It's held every year (though they're taking a break next year!) at The Station in Bristol, and is a free-to-attend event featuring stalls and workshops. I started working with the festival in 2021, and it's a joy to be invited back to take photographs for them every year!
THE BRIEF: DOCUMENTARY-STYLE community EVENT PHOTOGRAPHY IN BRISTOL
The brief I was given was fairly straightforward: get some documentary-style photos of the festival as it happened - attendees interacting with the stalls and stallholders, talks/workshops in progress, details of stalls and artwork - which could be used in print and online for promo and marketing in future years. I was also asked to get a photograph of each stallholder with their stall (unless they would prefer not to be photographed), to be sent out to everyone after the event was over.
This is 100% my favourite kind of brief, and one that I'm really well suited to. Documentary-style event photography is the core of my approach; I like to be unobtrusive, allowing people to get on with enjoying themselves without me shoving a camera in their face and forcing them to smile. I get to react to what's going on around me and really connect with the space, using my camera to create an authentic record of the event and how it felt to be there. On a more technical level, it also gives me a great opportunity to play with framing and depth of field!
Taking a posed image of each stall-holder is a little different to all that but I still relish doing it, because it gives me the opportunity to say hello to everyone, become part of the event, and also gauge how comfortable each person is with having their photo taken (see the below section). There are so many interesting people at PrideCAF each year that I always end up having at least one really lovely conversation. (I also end up buying stuff. Ooops.)
CONSENT BASED EVENT PHOTOGRAPHY
Consent is a really important part of the way I photograph community events - especially LGBTQ events. Lots of people are uncomfortable being on camera and, for those of us in the queer community, being photographed can even be a safety concern. Simply asking whether someone wants to be photographed is a really easy way to approach this, and has the added benefit of giving me the chance to say hello to everyone working the event.
But obviously, at events involving members of the public, I can't always talk to everyone. It can sometimes be a challenge to take documentary-style photos that capture the event, but still take consent into account. There are a couple of tricks to get around this: close-ups of people's hands as they pick up things from the stalls can be a great way of getting lovely photographs that can still be really useful for marketing. Similarly, a great way to photograph people can be to ensure that I'm focusing on stallholders who have consented to be photographed, and that the attendees are out of focus, or have their back to me.
I also think it's important to be transparent about what I'm taking, and open to changing my approach if anyone feels uncomfortable; to that end I'm always willing to delete photos if someone asks me to. At 2022's festival I was approached by the parent of a neurodivergent child, who had been struggling to enjoy the event because they were worried about being on camera, which developed into a conversation about the things I could do to put them more at ease.
This kind of thing can actually be a contentious issue amongst photographers at times (and that's probably a whole blog post in itself!) but honestly I'm just not interested in making people uncomfortable. I have to do my job, but if I can do so in such a way that improves someone's experience then why wouldn't I?
AFFORDABLE EVENT PHOTOGRAPHY
One final thing that bears mentioning is that PrideCAF book me at my reduced rate every year. I developed my reduced rate specifically to ensure that those on low-income, community groups and small, grassroots organisations with little to no funding are able to hire a professional photographer. While I always ask that any larger organisations - or anyone that can afford it - pays my standard rate, it's very important to me that my pricing is accessible and affordable. My reduced rate therefore covers the exact same service, at a lower price.
I love the photos I took at PrideCAF - not just in 2024, but also every single year that I've worked with them. Be sure to check out their website if you want to know more about the event, and if you're considering booking me to be your event photographer, you can find more information here!
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