Folk Fest on film 2025

I'll put these up here too, although I don't think they turned out as well as last year's. I'm not sure if it was the type of film I used (ISO 400 vs 200) or the haze in the air from the wildfires, but these are just not as crisp or bright for some reason.

 

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Winnipeg Folk Fest 2025

Since the Folk Fest started cracking down on professional looking cameras in, this post will be limited to iPhone snapshots only. I also took a few on film, but those are still waiting on development and not included here.

There was a lot of smoke in the air this year (from the wildfires, not the people), which was not ideal, but otherwise, the weather worked out well. It only stormed at night and only got exceedingly hot during our partial days on Thursday and Sunday.

It felt unusual -- although not a bad thing, necessarily -- that it was just the four of us there this year. R's family of origin usually joins in one form or another, but they had some other things going on.

 

It was the festival's 50th anniversary!

Gillian Welch was my highlight of the year:

Hippies:

Stilt-walker and my tarp shuffle ticket:

Sooooo many people in attendance this year...

The Gustavo show in the kids' tent (left) and a sleepy show at Shady Grove (right):

We made a point of getting a good spot for this show because Ani DiFranco was on the roster, but her plane was delayed and she missed it entirely. We likely would have been able to get her autograph too :-(.

Our camping spot had a lot of shade for a change. Cheeseballs have become a tradition!

Photo by R (thanks for getting me in the frame):

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Winnipeg Folk Fest 2024 - 35mm edition

I'm going to be parsing out some of these photos on my MLMM Instagram account over the next few weeks, but followers of this blog get to see them all together up front. These are the film shots I took in Winnipeg this year. I limited myself to one roll of 36 exposures over the three days of the festival, which really got me to stop and question if a shot was worth taking. Other times, I had to act fast and not over think it. Most of these are photo-journalistic in style and off-topic for a family photo blog, but my Folk Fest coverage would not feel complete without them, so here you go...

 

My biggest challenge with this old, manual camera is getting human eyes in focus. I'm still learning to embrace the technical imperfections. That said, it's hard to take a bad photo of little Alice:

Bonnie Light Horseman:

My favorite shot from the roll:

Palmyra:

The campground:

The bike lot:

Big Blue Stem at golden hour:

My ISO 200 film speed was a little slow for these late-day shots.

Something productive from the 45 minutes I spent waiting in line for a plain hamburger:

Festival sights:

Alice and the cheeseballs:

An older kid at the beach, also indulging in the cheeseball:

Ruth Moody:

Band of Horses:

This is what I'm here for:

Getting a little experimental... This maybe shouldn't make the cut, but I'm starting to like it:

It is challenging to photograph strangers straight-on, in front of them, without their permission, but getting over it can open you up to a whole new world of photography.

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