Glastonbury Carnival 2011 Photos

It took some time, but I’ve finally finished processing the photos from Glastonbury Chilkwell Guy Fawkes Carnival from Saturday. The weather was fine all day, in fact it was probably one of the nicest days of November so far. This meant perfect conditions for the carnival. A cold wind did pick up for a while before the start, but it soon died down again.

While there were a lot of shots I wasn’t happy with (there always is), thanks to two participants, I was able to get some of my best ever carnival photographs. The first performer from Vagaonds Carnival Club turned to the camera to do her routine, while glaring intensely at the camera, perfect for the tone of the cart. While that was good, perhaps even more surprising was the performer from Centurion CC, who gave a brilliant smile. Many not familiar with carnival may not find that very surprising perhaps, but Centurion is a tableau club, where the participants stay frozen for the whole procession, but again, it fit in well with the theme. My sincere thanks must go to both of these two performers. Carnival photographs are always going to be dynamic by their very nature, but it isn’t always possible to capture the atmosphere. I felt that the relationship between them and the camera really lifted the photographs to another level. I’m not a portrait photographer normally, so it is probably one of the few occasions where I have had a buzz from photographing people, normally it’s confined to my nature photographs, when I get what I was looking for.

Like last year, I had taken note of some of the features of the carts that I had wanted to photograph, so I concentrated more on different angles (mainly portrait formats of the carts), portraits of the performers and closeup and detail shots. Not all of them were successful, as many of the performers were in higher positions than last year, which caused focusing and depth of field problems that had to be overcome. Again, this is something to note for next year.

Despite some failures, overall it was a success for me and as usual, plenty of money was collected for local charities, although not as much as you might expect, given that there are usually around 50,000 spectators.

Guy Fawkes Carnival Photo Clusters

Spirit of the Blitz by Huckyduck CC

I have now created a number of photo clusters featuring some of the carts entered in the 2010 Somerset County Carnival circuit. They are aimed at performers who took part in the carnival, who would like a memento of their club’s entries and will be available as either A3 or A4 prints, on high quality, heavyweight fine art paper. If you are interested and would like to know if your club’s entry is available, please contact me, if you don’t see anything suitable. They can be printed with or without a caption, according to preference. I will be adding further clusters to the gallery as I create them, so please drop back in to see other examples.

Glastonbury and Chilkwell Carnival

At the Bottom of the Garden by Pentathlon CC

On Saturday it was the penultimate carnival in the Somerset County 2010 season, the Glastonbury and Chilkwell Guy Fawkes Carnival. Having already attended Bridgwater in the rain and North Petherton, I decided to try something a bit different. I’m not a big people person when it comes to photography, so I tend to avoid them in my photos (perhaps why I concentrate on nature photography). This time though, I made a conscious effort to photograph groups of performers, as well as some individual performers. I didn’t go for real closeup portraits, but tried to include them in the context of the carts themselves. I also photographed some of the walking masqueraders, where the flash was essential, due to the lower light levels, and also some more detail shots.

Side view of Scrooge

Scrooge by Wick Carnival Club


The carnival itself was a success, with the rain holding off until the end (although people further along the route would have been affected by the weather much more). This season had seen a number of fires on carts, as well as some generator failures and even a model toppling onto one of the performers, but there was none of that at Glastonbury. On a more personal note, the photography also went well, with more shots I was happy enough with to upload, although the rain at the end pretty much ruined the shots of the last few carts. I’ve decided that flash photography in the rain doesn’t work very well.