I was hired on a dream assignment – to shoot Glastonbury Festival. But not to shoot music or stage performances, but atmosphere around the festival. The dream lasted until around the third hour of fighting, yes FIGHTING with the mud. I was shooting for the great guys over at Festival Annual.

Glastonbury is conceivably the largest rock music festival on earth. 175,000 people went this year. It’s the largest single purpose site I’ve ever seen for anything. Considering that many cities in UK are smaller than 175,000 people, it’s quite something. Glastonbury is a messy, wonderful temporary city. Everyone is there to have a good time. And the atmosphere is amazing.

But Glastonbury really is so much more than a music festival. It is a celebration of culture savoured like no other.

Like this little disco tent with funky light, you find these little places all over the site.

And people just hanging out on a hill overlooking the site at sunset

The site is entirely eclectic, from chill-out areas.

Charming camp sites…

Kid’s play areas

Busking…

…and even a dry cinema for the small and big kids.

Of course one of the big challenges is the mud. The ground at Glastonbury is made of clay, which turns into a very sticky mud that literally pulls the shoes off people’s feet.

Resulting in lovely scenes like the ‘Wellie Graveyard), the place protective footwear goes to die.

Just a bit of toilet atmosphere…

Glastonbury also has some very established night life. Because of the distance from any large urban population, curfews aren’t quite the same.

The party lasts all night. 

Even in some of the clubs, like ‘Fish and Tits’ in the Shangri-La area. Pole dancers and all sorts. 

Or Downlow NYC, a retro gay club which is part of the ‘party area’, Block 9. 

But Glastonbury wouldn’t be Glasto without all the performance art. The ‘Spider’ show at the Arcadia field attracts a lot of attention.

The Pyramid stage during U2’s set.

The end!

To see more, head over to the Festival Annual Facebook page. My images will be part of their annual book documenting festival culture. It will be out in the Autumn.

You can follow my work on twitter or stay in touch via facebook.

I flew to Denmark for the second time in 2 months to cover Copenhagen Fashion Week for Getty Images and Wireimage. There’s something incredibly clean and crisp about Nordic design – I’m drawn to it. The Danes and their scandinavian companions tend to pull off some interesting shows, there’s a snapshot of that in the video below. There’s a lot more if you head over to wireimage.com and search for ‘Felix Kunze Copenhagen’.

Fashion week is 12 hour days of shooting one show after the other, lots of editing and uploads to the agency during the night, very little sleep, many turned down invitations to parties and a lot of mad fun on the press bus that takes us from show to show.

Apart from the interesting talent on show, notable at Fashion week were: the grace of Crown Princes Mary of Denmark, the appearance of fashion regulars such as James Goldstein (seen in the video wearing a cowboy-like hat), The Worlds Greatest Catwalk – a Guinness world records attempt for the longest catwalk, hosted by danish supermodel Helena Christensen with entertainment by Mads Langer and the general atmosphere in the crowd and around Copenhagen. I think the below gives a good glimpse of the atmosphere at the show.

If you like this, also check out Haiti, Roskilde and recent Portraiture or head over to the homepage. You can also follow me on twitter or check out my page on facebook.

By the way, Thorsten Overgaard’s lucid article on Copenhagen fashion week is worth a read. Click here

Youtube version for iOS Devices:

While I get all the images ready, I thought I’d provide a little preview here; incaptioned images just as a teaser. Keep connected on twitter, facebook or subscribe to the blog feed to keep updated on my images from Haiti and what’s happening with the orphans.

Having thought long and hard about how to adequately represent my work in Haiti, I went with Thorsten Overgaard’s suggestion of turning the slide-show presentations I’ve done in person into a voice annotated slideshow and put it on my website.

I hope you enjoy watching it as much as I enjoyed creating these images. Watch this in full screen if you can.

Haiti – an Overview from felix kunze on Vimeo.

A voice-annotated slide-show of photographs by Photographer Felix Kunze who travelled to Haiti after the January 2010 earthquake – work shows a variety of areas including the atmosphere in Haiti, living conditions of locals as well as work being done with orphans.

Felix concentrated on the good being done in Haiti, rather than taking photographs of death and despair, there is a lot of good coming out of Haiti.

A voice-annotated slide-show of photographs by Photographer Felix Kunze who travelled to Haiti after the January 2010 earthquake – work shows a variety of areas including the atmosphere in Haiti, living conditions of locals as well as work being done with orphans.

Felix concentrated on the good being done in Haiti, rather than taking photographs of death and despair, there is a lot of good coming out of Haiti.

Felix is leaving tomorrow (1st of March) to go on his second Haiti trip. To follow along, follow on twitter at www.twitter.com/felixkunze

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There’s a digest of the images used in the slideshow, but without captions here: http://www.felixkunze.com/cache/haiti-overview-images/

To see further posts from me regarding Haiti, click here. Be sure to check back on the blog as more content will be added from my Haiti trips.

To give, please consider donating to the orphanage I was working with: TheFutureOfHaiti.org or to help internally displaced persons survive the rainy season, go to Shelterbox.org Another fantastic organization that is also working with the Future of Haiti Orphanage is Helpfororphans.org

Anything you give will help.

I’m putting aside commercial work and other commitments to embark on a second photographic trip to Haiti. I will be working on several projects, this time in a more structured fashion. I’ll be out there with Help For Orphans International as well as working with some other projects – more on that after the fact. I know that I will definitely be photographing about 100 more orphans in the same style I did on my last trip.

There’s also tie-ins with media and radio.

My trip will start on Monday, 1st of March, I’m headed to New York City. There’s something really cool happening there that I can’t yet talk about, but will reveal in good time.

On Wednesday, 3rd of March I head down to Philadelphia, I’ll attend a Help for Orphans fundraiser.

On Thursday, 4th of March, we’re headed out to Haiti via the Dominican Republic. I’ll be there for about 8 days, at which point I fly to Miami to spend around 24 hours on the 13th of March in the Tampa Bay area and wrapping up edits and loose ends from my Haiti trip. Then it’s an early morning flight to LA on the 14th where I will spend about 72 hours. I’ll speak on a big radio show and podcast about my work in Haiti. I’m leaving LA on the 16th, arriving back in London on the 17th.

Meetups:

For people in New York, if you want to meet up, I want to get coffee or dinner on the 2nd. I’ll be able to tell you all about my exciting news in NY on that day, but only in person. Message me for details and to arrange coming along.

In the Tampa Bay area, I want to do a meetup after another event I’m attending on the 13th of March. It will be late night chats and drinks somewhere. Message me for details!

For LA, my idea is to have a bit of a social on the evening of the 15th. I’ll have recorded my radio segment and will want to hang out, probably in Silverlake somewhere (close friends will already know the venue). Again – message me for details.

After that I’ll be heading back home to London for just over 24 hours and then it’s back to Berlin, this time for some family engagements.

That means I’ll be back in London properly on around the 24th of March, probably feeling a fair amount more tired that I feel right now, but with great stories to tell and many many pictures to show!

Sorry for the ambiguous blog post, the details will flesh themselves out as my trip goes on – My ‘placemarkers’ right now are my 7 booked flights, everything will revolve around those and updates will come daily on my twitter page or you can head over to my Where is Felix page to get location based updates.

Before I left to Haiti, I promised that I would try to show the good work being done by volunteers and relief works on the ground in Haiti.

One such project was an orphanage I came across in my first couple of days in Haiti. It had been established after the earthquake, not far from Port-Au-Prince International airport. It houses over 100 children, provides basic shelter, sanitation and medical as well as education the children in Creole, French and English as well as other basic subjects. Food and water are also provided, which for some of these children is the first time they have been fed properly. The plan for the orphanage is to get each child sponsored for life, so they can be continually supported in a fashion that will enable them to live a full life, with a decent education, nourishment and happiness. The children are the future of Haiti. Helping the kids of Haiti is a long-term investment.

For me as a photographer, being part of this orphanage project was probably the most important project I could undertake on this trip. While there are lots of important actions being taken to save people’s lives in the short term and to provide immediate relief, long term actions are vital and any support of the future of this beautiful country is vital.

I took a day out of photographing all other relief efforts and took portraits of over 100 children in the orphanage. I did a portrait of each orphan and then a photo of each with a plaque showing their name and age. The purpose is to use the images on the web to help each child get sponsored. If you want to help Haiti recover from the horror of the last month, give what you can to help an orphan live a full, healthy life. These kids are absolutely amazing. Read my descriptions under the photos below for some heart-warming stories of the utter beauty and humanity evident in each and every child.

More information and more of my photos are available at the link below. Please give what you can:

TheFutureOfHaiti.org

The orphans line up to wash their hands before eating lunch.

Orphans being given their daily lunch. These kids line up like the best behaved of all British people. There's nothing quite as moving as seeing a child that has lived in a malnourished state develop physically from day to day. This is what is happening every day at the orphanage, and it's as simple as giving each kid lunch, dinner and some clean water to drink.

The kids are provided with clean drinking water, but are charged with keeping their own cups or bottles so they can keep the water as provisions have been made for locally sourced water to be purified and drunk by the kids.

An orphan drinks water in a rare spot shaded by the sun.

The orphanage is working in coordination with a variety of organizations including medical teams that provide basic medical needs, vaccinations and other relief. The effect is always immediate, kids who've had very basic medical issues are now doing a lot better.

They are also working with HelpTheOrphans.org who help support the orphans.

Local projects include showing these children soccer skills. With good nutrition, the orphans have a real chance to excel at sports projects. Malnourishment is a problem as bones of malnourished children break easily, particularly during sports.

The children are provided with a basic education, some of them for the first time. A lot of kids wish more than anything to be able to go to school and attain an education - a guarantee that they can make it in the future.

A sampling of the orphan portraits I shot:

I'll end this blog post with a somewhat tragic story that has a happy ending. This particular kid, Amateur, came to the orphanage on the day I was doing the shoot. He had been on the street for an undetermined time, without anyone to look after him. He had injuries to front and the back of his head and no-one knows how these were inflicted. He was afraid of physical contact with any adults or other kids. It was obvious he had been abused in some fashion. He did not know his own age, a fact that hit me hard. This child will never know how old he is, he will never know his birthday and most of all he will never again have parents. He was probably the 60th orphan I had photographed on the day, but when he couldn't name his age, I was truly affected. I took a break and had to wipe my eyes, something had gotten into them. He is now safe and well, being fed and relearning what it means to trust other human beings.

Again, if you want to help go to TheFutureOfHaiti.org – any donation will help.

If you are interested in other Haiti news, why not subscribe to this blog.

I’ve put this all over twitter and facebook, but I’ve just booked my flight to New York as I’ve been asked to come document relief efforts in relief. There are efforts being coordinated in NYC that I’ll be photographing as well as following a team of volunteers and medical personnel to Haiti. I will be in Haiti for about a week. Aid flights are sporadic and I don’t want to assume that I can get on the first one out. A medically trained person has priority, as do many other’s more skilled than I.  My trip to New York has been set up under my own steam, I will have assistance to get out to Haiti once I am there. Accommodation will likely be in tents outside, on a camping mat and sleeping bag, all of which will be in my luggage.

While there are lot of news photographers out there, I will be concentrating on showing stories, showing how the relief work is helping the people of Haiti. There’s a lot of good being done in the area. People’s lives are being rebuilt and medical assistance is getting through to some areas. The best efforts of all the international relief cannot bring food and water to areas that are desperately inaccessible but that’s no reason not to try.

I’ve heard about a team of film-makers following a doctor around Haiti as part of some documentary footage being filmed – I am not going to be involved in anything like that. I want to come back with images that show the hope and the grace that results form someone being helped put their life back in order, similar to what I did in India.

If you have any questions, feel free to email me. I’ll have intermittent access. My work is going up to various organisations that I’m working with  I’ll also be putting some stuff on twitter and facebook. To follow me on twitter go to www.twitter.com/felixkunze

My ultimate goal is to help bring the good side of what is now happening in Haiti out, to show people that there is hope, and through this encourage more people to give, more people to do something and help put the situation into perspective.

I am looking for further funding too, there’s always more I can bring to the area. We need supplies of all sorts. But even if you can’t help this trip directly, please give to the red cross or any other reputable organization in your area that is doing something to help.

Stay tuned for more.