Hard Rock Hell

Obviously, when you think of Butlins holiday camps, your first thought will turn to weekend heavy metal/goth festivals… yes?

Oh, ok. Maybe not! This is essentially what The Hard Rock Hell Winter Ball i though. Seaside holiday camp + a range of classic rock and metal, peppered with more extreme modern metal bands, and a pinch of goth-type-stuff added for good measure is definitely a recipe for a great weekend! No? Oh yes it is! (Well, I enjoyed it anyway).

Headliners, Twisted Sister were not exactly my cup of tea, but were fun to shoot nonetheless! My absolute favourite performance of the weekend was by Battle Metallers, Turisas, who tore up the stage in Reds (Home of the Redcoats, apparently!) with their inimitable style of folk-ish sing-a-long metal.

Other highlights included:

• Cradle of Filth, just because I’ve wanted to shoot them for a while now and the pictures didn’t turn out all that bad.
• My Dying Bride, who were excellent live. I didn’t really know there stuff before, but I’ll certainly look them up now.
• Grand Magus, even though they appeared to be unable to remember their songs in places. I do like their music though.
• Diamond Head, who put on a great show at 4am on the Saturday!
• Chthonic, were thoroughly enjoyable also.
• And finally, the fans there who made it such a pleasant festival to be at.

As flash was allowed on the smaller stages this was the first time I’ve had the opportunity to use wireless flash at a festival. Using the Nikon CLS system allowed me to trigger my SB-800 in different positions on the stage to add a bit more interest to the lighting. I got some strange looks off other photographers who had their flashguns firmly welded to the top of their camera. Overall I’ve been incredibly chuffed with how the wireless system works on the Nikons, allowing TTL flash or manual control from the camera, which means I can just bob the flash down somewhere and forget about it until I feel I need to move it. The TTL mode is incredibly useful for fast moving artists and for when I can’t place the flash down anywhere (i.e. the flash to subject distance is changing almost constantly). If you have a Nikon camera with a built-in flash, I’d certainly give it a go!