About Call
The Rock ‘n Roll Photography Workshop is an educational initiative launched as a collaboration between the Wacken Foundation and Pep Bonet in 2022.Taking the opportunity of 2024 Wacken edition (31st July to August 3rd 2024) and led by NOOR author Pep Bonet, it will empower six selected English-speaking photographers by facilitating the development of their visual mastery in music, event and festival photography.
The criteria for selection of candidates is as follows:
- Portfolios will be reviewed on the basis of original, human-focused storytelling, including but not limited to community focus on musicians, teams, attendees, volunteers and the many faces of human connection in music festival culture
- Personal moments of humour, spontaneity, fun and memorable moments
- Inclusive and ethical representation of diverse individuals, couples and groups
- Capacity for the creation of rich single images that are exciting, expressive or captivating
- Capacity for the creation of visual stories that can act as effective communication
- We push for gender parity, and actively pursue equal representation of candidates
What winners receive
Tuition-free live workshop by NOOR Author Pep Bonet during Wacken 2024. For four days, the mentor and candidates will be working as a group, dividing tasks, creating a variety of images with a fresh style - shooting, editing and post-producing new photography on the spot to be used on the official WOA communication channels.
During the 2024 festival / workshop all the participants will be hosted for free at W:O:A, and you will all receive a free entrance ticket.
For your whole stay you will also have access to the crew catering area, where 3 meals a day are served and beverages are free in the area.
All necessary VIP passes and permits for shooting and access will be arranged.
You will be picked up by a shuttle bus outside Hamburg Hbf train station or at Hamburg airport.
About the organization
Wacken Open Air (Abbreviated as W:O:A) is a heavy metal music festival, held annually since 1989 on the first weekend of August in the village of Wacken in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. Almost all styles and subgenres of hard rock and metal are represented and hosted.[1] It is now one of the largest heavy metal festivals in the world and one of the largest open-air festivals in Germany. Between 2011 and 2018, the number of attendees was around 85,000, 75,000 of whom were paying visitors.
Application information
Multiple applications from the same candidate will disqualify the application. Photographers are expected to arrive in Wacken on July 30th and depart on August 4th, 2024. Please, don’t apply if you are not able to take part in the workshop entirely.
Judging Criteria
All candidates will be reviewed anonymously in a 2-tier assessment. Initial screening will be held by the WOA team. The final candidates will be selected by a representative of the Wacken Foundation and Pep Bonet.
About the mentor Pep Bonet
The workshop will be led by Pep Bonet, multi-award winning photojournalist with a large body of work in music photography. Former photographer of Motörhead, official photographer of Wacken Open Air for various editions, Pep has been committed to the visual documentation of rock 'n roll and heavy metal scenes across the globe, as demonstrated, among others, by his latest personal project 'Hellbangers', an audiovisual project and book documenting the unique underground metal music scene of Botswana.
