About Call

The Rock ‘n Roll Photography Workshop is an educational initiative presented by Pep Bonet and LOUD>SOCIETY. Taking the opportunity of W:O:A 2025 (30th July to August 2nd 2025) and led by Pep Bonet, who established this initiative at the festival for the past three years, it will empower between four and six selected 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
• Candidates are required to be able to speak and understand English

What winners receive

Tuition-free live workshop by Pep Bonet during Wacken 2025. 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 W:O:A communication channels.

During the 2025 festival/workshop all the participants will be hosted for free at W:O:A, including a free entrance ticket and access to the crew catering area, where 3 meals a day and beverages will be provided for free.

All necessary VIP passes and permits for shooting and access will be arranged. You will be picked up by a shuttle bus at either Hamburg Hbf train station or at Hamburg airport.

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.

About Wacken Open Air

Wacken Open Air is the largest heavy metal festival in the world. Starting with 800 visitors in 1990, nowdays 85,000 fans from all over the world travel to Wacken every year, turning the small village in Schleswig-Holstein into the center of the festival scene for several days. The organizing WOA Festival GmbH is connected to a broad network including band management, the Wacken Foundation, tour booking, music publishing, metal travel, merchandising distribution and ticketing. In cooperation with partners, this results in creative solutions and ideas that revolutionize the festival experience, enable technical innovations and produce extraordinary event concepts. Wacken Open Air 2025 will take place from July 30 to August 2, 2025.

Application information

Multiple applications from the same candidate will disqualify the application. Photographers are expected to arrive in Wacken on July 29th and depart on August 3rd, 2025. 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 W:O:A team. The final candidates will be selected by Pep Bonet.

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.