On Sunday 16th August I shot over 20 bands at Dodd Stock in Brixham.  I’m still trying to get rid of the bodies.

It was a great day, with a tagline of “One day of Peace, Love, Art and Music” and all in aide of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Amnesty International and Surfers Against Sewage.  I shot over 800 frames throughout the day, of which I kept just over 50% (not bad for me).  There were two stages: a large outdoor stage and a smaller indoor area.  There was also an open mic jam tent, which became an open air open mic jam, um.. ‘place’ when the tent blew away.

Photographing the outdoor stage was pretty straightforward, it being lit entirely by reflected sunlight for most of the day.  The indoor stage, however, was a dim room with disco lights behind the musicians and no front illumination at all, so I had to be a little more creative.  Out came the remote flash-

The Quincies

Canon 50D + EF 24-70mm f/2.8 L USM lens @ 35mm, f/4, 1/250s, ISO800

I mounted the flash on a stand and fired it bare from the side of the stage so it didn’t get in the way.  The flash was set at its lowest power so that it didn’t drown out the surrounding area (and also because I didn’t want to replace the batteries – I’m cheap like that).  It was all guess-work really, which mostly gave good results   It was certainly a learning experience.  Here are some more shots from the indoor stage-

Jorel Williams (not Jimi Hendrix)

Canon 50D + EF 24-70mm f/2.8 L USM lens @ 43mm, f/3.5, 1/100s, ISO800

Rachel Jones Band

Canon 50D + EF 24-70mm f/2.8 L USM lens @ 35mm, f/3.5, 1/160s, ISO800

Audiohazard

Canon 50D + EF 24-70mm f/2.8 L USM lens @ 48mm, f/4, 1/100s, ISO800

The Iconyx

Canon 50D + EF 24-70mm f/2.8 L USM lens @ 24mm, f/3.2, 1/80s, ISO800

As I’ve mentioned, the outdoor stage was a natural light job-

Lauren Mason

Canon 50D + EF 24-70mm f/2.8 L USM lens @ 24mm, f/8, 1/250s, ISO100

Rock School

Canon 50D + EF 24-70mm f/2.8 L USM lens @ 42mm, f/5.6, 1/200s, ISO100

Bert Miller & The Animal Folk

Canon 50D + EF 24-70mm f/2.8 L USM lens @ 50mm, f/5.6, 1/160s, ISO100

I’d like to take the opportunity to express my approval of Bert Miller & The Animal Folk and their work.  I found this Totnes band to be the perfect mix of crazy, innocent, playful, musical, noisy, deep, shallow, wild, domestic, charismatic, genuine, tongue-in-cheek, hilarious, offensive and endearing.  Check them out.

The full set of photos can be found in this flickr collection, should you wish to have a nosy.

And finally, über kudos to Emily Howard and her team for organising a damn good local knees-up

Emily Howard

Canon 50D + EF 24-70mm f/2.8 L USM lens @ 70mm, f/2.8, 1/200s, ISO200

Roll on Dodd Stock 2010!