Coachella 2011 Day 3: The Experience

This is a pretty fitting picture to welcome the end of my Coachella 2011 documentation. The ride has been unforgettable. Connecting with close friends camping, meeting new and interesting strangers and being inspired by the absorbing humanistic nature that is in everyone. Not to mention I got to shoot a spread for my friends over at lookbook.nu here. If you didnt catch my blurb at the end, I wrote about my experience a couple days after the event, sulking in it's positive afterglow:

There’s something rewarding about melting in a camp area where the heat of the desert is ubiquitous and it’s not because we’re all sadistic. Maybe in the process of suffering with 20 of your friends at camp, you all bond in a certain way unlike any musical act or hotel room can ever bond you. Add on morning iced coffee, strawberry slushy drink, the arts and crafts tent, hundreds of near-naked people, even more amazing musical acts, my 3 film cameras (nikon slr, compact xa, holga), and 7 rolls of film...this calls for a pretty sweet equation.

I went into the field not to cover the event as an outsider but i tried to submerge myself to capture the volatile scenes that were happening right before my eyes. I tried to make every frame I took different to keep the visual narrative exciting. My favorite part of Coachella was not the musical acts (although I have Kanye and The Strokes blaring in my ear as we speak), it was how we all act differently at Coachella. Let me explain: When you go to a musical festival such as Coachella, you leave a lot of your fears and anxieties at home. You aren’t afraid of strangers as much and your mind becomes open to new and maybe alienating ideas. It is this idea of a 3 day Utopian society that excites me the most. Maybe it's a glimpse into how we all should be living our lives. Everyone is cordial, there is no fear of crime, people become unified by the common thread of music and community. And if you read this last part and slightly laughed to yourself, that means you haven’t experienced it yet.

Until next year Coachella...

cameras used: Olympus xa, Nikon f3hp, Holga

film used: ektar 100, velvia 100, pro 400h.

12FV(343 days).

click here for coachella11 part I

click here for coachella11 part II

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