It’s that time again. Woot!

For the seventh year in a row — fourth as a team leader — the Edmonton Fringe Festival is once more in full swing and I’m primed with camera in hand to help with the whole multimedia-slash-photography thing. My first shift is on the morrow.

Given my role as a team leader I’m in the interesting position of not actually having a formal photography assignment like our other hard working volunteers — I don’t need to go out and capture one specific theme or set of images, as we enforce (however loosely) upon our crew. And that’s good. It really leaves me free to do two things: (a) fill gaps in our content and (b) wander the grounds and experiment with my camera. The latter has even more impact this year, not only because my shifts are weekend and evening shifts (unlike the dire collection of daytime stuff I did last year whilst quasi-employed) but I’m in the middle of my photography (un)project and prompted to do a little more experimenting than I otherwise might. Which is awesome. Cool. Excellent. FTW! I can hardly wait.

(It does mean I need to turn over those pics to the Fringe for use in something, whatever, who knows. But alas… I can still share a few with readers in my gallery. ‘Tis a hard bargain to be sure: photos for volunteer swag and free shows.)

So there it is: the challenge within a challenge. Thousands of urban festival-goers. Dozens of performers. The brisk evening air. Lights. Sounds. Colours. Art. Food. Stages. Streets. People everywhere. And I with my camera and lenses and hours worth of images to capture. I’ll need some focus, both literally and creatively.

Help.

Tell me then: what’s your idea? What should I capture? I have five shifts, so five themes — five challenges — are possible. Comment below. And, remember, if you happen to be going there yourself, too, snap along. I’ll post or link to your results and mine.

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