I photographed Øyafestivalen again for the third year in a row. My responsibility this year was capturing the atmostphere, which is super chill as I get to walk around and, see some concerts and photograph cool bands (compared to being responsible to one of the stages where I have to photograph the usually first three songs, run back to edit and publish photos hopefully before the band goes off the stage so that the social media crew can post cool photos on Instagram as it’s hot and fresh). I still need to edit and publish photos, but the sense or urgency is not there.

My personal biggest hype this year was American band Khruangbin, which I’ve been a fan of for many years. They were supposed to play at a different festival in Oslo in 2020, but Covid-19 cancelled the festival that year, and Khruangbin didn’t return when the festival eventually were allowed to open again in 2022. So I was super stoked when I saw they were headlining this festival this summer! Sadly, it looked like the band was there to play a gig, get the bag and head off to the next venue.

The biggest public hype was probably the Irish rap group Kneecap because of the “controversy” around their support for Palestine. The festival itself felt the heat from pro-Palestinian groups calling for the boycott of the festival because of (in very short) the company owning the festival is again owned by another company having shares in companies involved in Israel. I guess that’s the gist of it. And also for having Pepsi as a main sponsor. I think Øyafestivalen did great balancing these issues by letting bands like Kneecap and others to use the stage to talk about the genocide and war crimes committed by Israel against Palestinians, and not trying to censor any free speech.

I always come home from a festival with a new favourite band, and this year’s biggest surprise Wet Leg. I’m not gonna write too much about them, just ask that you go to their YouTube account and watch a few videos.

I love girl in red..

..and Anna of the North..

..but my biggest memory that I will cherish for some time was watching another Irish group BICEP play their super hit “Glue” in a heavily smoked tent with lots of lights, lasers and people just dancing and cheering. Difficult to see the artists though.

I have since working at Øyafestivalen this year given a lot of thought about working for free as a volunteer at music festivals (and other events). I haven’t concluded anything, but I think photographers absolutely should get paid for the work they put in. Exposure is cool and all, but it doesn’t pay the bills. Festivals have big budgets and should definitely pay for some of the value they get from using all these photos in their marketing to sell tickets for next year. I know many photographers outside of festivals have deals with music magazines and will work for absolutely free just to get into the concert and experience bands they like, and it’s damaging the photo business since everyone expects to get photos for free these days. Some of them have full time jobs elsewhere and don’t really need the extra income and therefore don’t care much. I don’t have much reach, but I’ll take a stand and say ‘no’ to unpaid work unless I have a very good reason not too. (Some pro bono work is good and can also be very beneficial.)

Fuck you, pay me.