I have been home from the Appaloosa Music Festival for almost two weeks, and I have edited all my photos and written my article for Blue Ridge Country Magazine. I thought I would share a little about my experience there and my top twelve favorite photos I took. For those stumbling upon this without knowledge of Appaloosa, it is a music festival put on by the band Scythian in Front Royal, VA, roughly an hour or so outside Washington, D.C.
My wife Jody and I packed up and left for Front Royal, VA, the day before. This was a six-hour drive that turned seven because we had to eat and stop at the rest area. Once we checked into our hotel, we grabbed some dinner at Osteria Maria, an authentic Italian restaurant I highly recommend. This place was just a bit pricy but well worth it.
Before leaving for the festival, I had prepped my gear, a two-camera setup, and a small bag containing my Polaroid I-2 camera, extra batteries, filters, and film. The lenses on my primary Nikon cameras were my Sigma C Series 100-400 lens and my Sigma Art Series 17-55 f1.8.
Jody and I arrived about an hour before the festival opened. We had hoped to get into the merchandise tent before the crowd did. That did not happen. Instead, we made our way to a photographer's meeting and began to get ready to photograph and listen to our first band, Catfish in the Sky. This festival does not have any restrictions on photography. You can shoot during any song at any point. This is not normal. Most places usually only give you the first two or three songs. Some artists also decline photography altogether, which never made sense to me, as it is basically free publicity. To each their own, though.
Throughout the day, we averaged about a band an hour. We also walked around photographing vendors and the crowd. We also grabbed some food from the food trucks and tried to find shade when possible. The temperature was pushing 93 degrees, and my irritability grew as I was not too fond of the heat. As it started getting later in the day, a thunderstorm rolled in, which caused some delays in shows and some rearranging of some of the sets. As the photography crew huddled under a small tent with the Gothard Sisters band their momager, I started snoring as Jody and another fellow photographer woke me up. It was hot, and it had started storming; it would put a lot of people to sleep. I enjoyed this cool-down immensely.
After a long day of photographing bands and people and working around the rain, I was ready to head back to the hotel room, shower, and start working on my images. I always tend to want to work quickly. I want to make sure everything is how I like it; this also allows me to adjust how I shoot for the next day. I finished editing around 1:30 am and slept in until around 9 am.
Day two, the last day of the festival, was our shortest day. We had to leave the festival a bit early, as I had a lot of work to catch up on the next day. We photographed around four bands before grabbing some food from the food truck and packing that up for our long drive back to Northeast, TN. The most fun thing I had was seeing the reactions to the Polaroid photos from both the bands and fellow photographers. Some didn’t even know they still made film for these. For those that have been following me for some time now, you know my love for Instant photography. I hope this inspires other photographers to create some instant art; you can not recreate the look.
Below are my top 12 favorite images I took while at Appaloosa. I hope you enjoy them. I am also sharing all of the Polaroid photographs in a separate gallery below. Thanks for reading!
TOP 12 IMAGES FROM THE 2024 APPALOOSA MUSIC FESTIVAL
Click images to enlarge and scroll.
POLAROIDS FROM THE 2024 APPALOOSA MUSIC FESTIVAL
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