Robert Hunt Photography

1000 Islands Music Festival – Day 1 – Aug 13 2009

August 20th, 2009 |

1000 Islands Music Festival – Day 1 – Featuring Emily Fennell, Ianspotting, Graham Greer, The Irish Descendants, and The Official Blues Bros Revue.

A line-up that included Simple Plan, Snoop Dogg, The Plain White T’s, The Arkells, Akon, and more surely would have been thought to bring in tens of thousands of fans to the 1000 Islands Music Festival. Unfortunately this wasn’t the case. Day 1 showed only a small handful of fans when Emily Fenell played her heart out to open the festival on Thursday August 13 2009, and as the day grew on with bands such as Ianspotting, The Irish Descendants, and Graham Greer, the night ended with a few hundred fans crowding the main concert stage for the Thursday night headliners, The Official Blues Brothers Revue.

Camping was only a stones throw away from the main entrance, and it was rightly worth it to camp on site, as fellow campers, and partygoers were well behaved for the most part of the first night. The portable washrooms were kept professionally maintained, and servicemen were on site for the entire day making sure the washrooms were kept clean. Mind you with the number of portable toilets, and only a few hundred concert patrons, I’m sure it made the service staffs job that much easier.

I’m sure I had a huge grin across my face on the first day of the 1000 Island Music Festival. I photographed the entire day with my Canon body that was loaned to me as my main camera was getting repaired. I used my 70-200 f/2.8 for most of the sets due to the height of the stage, and the multiple monitors, which eliminated any use of wide angle lenses. The main stage had excellent access to the photo pit, with plenty of room for the photographers as well as security. The 2 spotlights, and good backlighting made for some beautiful shots as the sun went down on the Dingham farm in Gananoque, Ontario. Security was well trained, and well prepared for the mass media, and concert photographers that converged to cover this major event.

Randy and Mr. Lahey