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52 Photo Challenge: Week 40-Environmental Portrait

“As long as there are kids who are pissed off and have no real way in venting out that anger, heavy metal will live on.”—Ozzy Osbourne

This week my assignment for the 52 photo challenge was to create an environmental portrait. Ideally, the image would be of a person in their surroundings and it would tell a story.

I didn’t quite follow the instructions. Instead of featuring a singular subject in an environment, I redefined it as featuring the environment itself. The place I focused on was Aftershock. It’s a four-day festival featuring 90 bands with more than 160,000 people in attendance.

As I wasn’t allowed to bring in my camera, all these photos are from my iPhone 13. I added a “gritty” look during editing which fits the mood of the audience and the music. Some of the bands featured on the day I attended were Avatar, Baby Metal, 311, and Korn. The temperature was hot. The crowds were wild. It was a lot of fun. I’m still tired.

  • If you are in the mood for some reading, here’s a short story I wrote this time last year. It’s one of my favorites. Week 40: Room 313
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#10—the crowd walking out at the end of the night looking like a zombie movie.

  • Photos were taken with an iPhone 13 and edited with ON1 Photo RAW
  • If you want to join the 52 Photo Challenge, you can find all the information at nicolesy.com

52 Photo Challenge
Week 1: Bokeh
Week 2: Silhouette
Week 3: Black and White
Week 4: Motion Blur
Week 5: Texture
Week 6: Framing
Week 7: Leading Lines
Week 8: Negative Space
Week 9: Patterns
Week 10: Symmetry
Week 11: Green
Week 12: Sidelight
Week 13: Sense of Scale
Week 14: One Lens
Week 15: Series
Week 16: Flat Lay
Week 17: Behind the Scenes
Week 18: Water
Week 19: Blurry Foreground
Week 20: Unique Perspective
Week 21: Shadow
Week 22: Food
Week 23: Abstract
Week 24: Reflection
Week 25: Contrast Color
Week 26: Think in Threes
Week 27: Starburst
Week 28: Low Perspective
Week 29: Macro
Week 30: Backlight
Week 31: Big Sky
Week 32: Dominant Color
Week 33: Fill the Frame
Week 34: Spot Metering
Week 35: Handheld Long Exposure
Week 36: S Curve
Week 37: Shoot Through
Week 38: Faces
Week 39: Blossom

33 thoughts on “52 Photo Challenge: Week 40-Environmental Portrait”

    • For sure! I met some amazing metal heads from all over the world. It’s a pretty kind and inclusive community.

      At the end of the night when we were waiting for the shuttle back to our car some religious protesters came by yelling that we need to repent and that metal music is from the devil. Everyone was laughing because it just felt so surreal. Hard to believe there are people out there who still think music is evil. Sad for them.

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    • It’s amazingly good people watching and I’m impressed by how much the metal community supports each other. Someone falls down, several people are there to pick them up. Had some great conversations, but nothing beats the end of the night weirdos who have drank/did too many drugs. I was guarding a pile of the kids stuff (merch and sweatshirts) and a woman comes up and says “I’ll protect your baby!” I try to tell her it’s not a baby and in fact a pile of stuff but she calls out for everyone to hear “I’m protecting this ladies baby.” Several men come over and say, “No, shit? We will help too.” Before I knew it I had a royal guard of drunk metal heads surrounding me. I was dying laughing!

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  11. That’s ofcourse an amazing Idea and you have captured and presented the content wonderfully as always. Thanks for sharing 👍

    It’s a four-day festival featuring 90 bands with more than 160,000 people in attendance. 👌👌💛❤

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