Woodyfest 2013: Band Camp & Backstage

Today we present can­did images from my first year as a vol­un­teer pho­tog­ra­pher for the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival. [Sidenote: While we’re all hun­kered down rid­ing out SARS-CoV-2, a.k.a. the 2019 novel coro­n­avirus, Mercury Photo Bureau will be bring­ing you a mix of sto­ries on the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival old and new. We ded­i­cate today’s story to the mem­o­ries of Gordon Bradley “Brad” James Jr. (1966 – 2015) and Jimmy LaFave (1955 – 2017).] I was still learn­ing to use my newly-acquired Leica dig­i­tal rangefinder cam­era when I shot the 2012 fes­ti­val from the audi­ence. A year later I had shot numer­ous musi­cal per­for­mances and fes­ti­vals, so I was feel­ing much more con­fi­dent as I doc­u­mented the 2013 Woodyfest.

2013 was also my first year to camp at the fes­ti­val. The camp­grounds are located at the Okemah rodeo grounds. I was camped with a group of Woodyfest reg­u­lars who always set up under the trees near the camp­ground entrance. They call them­selves Band Camp and are just one of sev­eral clans to host a song-cir­cle dur­ing the fes­ti­val evenings.

As a vol­un­teer I have access to var­i­ous back­stage areas that are off-lim­its to the gen­eral pub­lic. As you can imag­ine this presents many oppor­tu­ni­ties to cap­ture peo­ple in unguarded moments. I hope you like the results.

Gallery