photo by Tyson Elder
If you’ve seen me at a festival in recent years, you’ve very possibly noticed the neon orange tubes and black ribbon protruding from my head.
photo by Dean Kalyan
That’s my festival hair, and it’s been a fixture on my head since Rifflandia 2012.
photo by Darren Stone
Rifflandia has theme days. In 2012, one of those days was “orange day.” I chose this headdress as my orange accessory, and it didn’t come off all weekend.
Now, it finds its way onto my head before every festival, making me easy to find should I get lost like a four-year-old.
Canon EOS 550D (T2i) · Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5 EX DC HSM
10 mm · 1/160 s · f/8 · ISO 400
The orange tubes are made up of material best described as “Chinese finger trap stuff.”
Ashleigh Ball, lead singer of Hey Ocean! (and, as all Bronies know, the voice of Applejack and Rainbow Dash in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic) was the first person to, erm . . . ask to stick her finger in my festival hair.
It was such a strange request, I couldn’t pass it up.
Canon EOS 550D (T2i) · Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5 EX DC HSM
10 mm · 1/125 s · f/6 · ISO 1600
One other gent made the ask that night, and I was only too happy to oblige.
It never occurred to me to continue this tradition until 2014, when one of my photografriends suggested that I get a photo with lots of photografriend fingers stuck in lots of festival hair.
With that, I decided to get photos of anyone who interacted with my festival hair (asking after the hair, pulling on the hair, petting the hair, etc.). You’ll find the ever-expanding collection of those photos under the tag festivalhair.
photo by Tyson Elder
Also . . . either I’m the bug whisperer, or my festival hair convinced this dragonfly that I was a flower. It was flying around the security pit before a performance at Rock the Shores, so I stuck my hand out toward it, and it alighted upon my finger without hesitation.
Good thing I was in an enclosed area with ten other photographers at the time.
=)