In the Nineteen Seventies I went to free festivals just like the Stonehenge free pageant and the Windsor People’s free festival. In 1974 there wasn’t a legislation to stop these actions however, given we had been within the Queen’s again backyard in Windsor, the police got here, certainly one of whom whacked me across the aspect of the top. I fell off my log, spilled my tea, and I’ve by no means been the identical since. It colors your politics. I nonetheless have a slight indentation.
Having labored beforehand with the ambulance service, I helped arrange pageant welfare providers at these occasions however the variety of folks coming to the tent asking for help was far outweighed by those saying their girlfriend had been arrested for a little bit of hash. I made it my enterprise to go round photographing stop-and-searches, as a result of typically the police behaviour can be unacceptable – resembling strip-searching folks by the aspect of the street.
At these festivals we’d have amusing wanting on the Every day Specific, Mail or Information of the World. The mismatch between your expertise and what they stated you had been doing was huge. That’s one of many the explanation why I began pictures. I might go on to {photograph} such incidents because the Battle of the Beanfield in 1985, one of many largest mass arrests of civilians in British authorized historical past.
In 1986, the Public Order Act outlawed the free festivals and the livings that they’d supported vanished. Extra folks signed on and the communities turned a little bit of a refugee column. Heroin and Particular Brew began to look. By 1990, I left to do a pictures diploma in Nottingham. I received concerned there with the DIY Sound System and rave tradition, which gave me a second wind – I discovered one other tribe that was rather more optimistic than the one I had left.
In 1992, folks from throughout the nation had been on their approach to the Avon free festival. Policing on the time was executed by shifting you out of their space – Avon moved the convoys throughout into Worcestershire. Individuals shortly settled on Castlemorton Widespread. If folks trickle to an space it’s simple to police, however phrase had unfold and by the tip of the next day there have been 20,000 folks.
There have been factors at Castlemorton the place I used to be frightened as a result of I may see the prospect for one more Beanfield. However I additionally thought: I haven’t seen this in years. I used to be so grateful the entire thing had managed to coagulate with out violence and nastiness, and with a standard objective to indicate it may nonetheless be executed.
On the time it was a factor to bounce on the highest of the speaker stacks or on buses and vans. At Castlemorton, all of the vans fashioned a circle, so I used to be sitting on a truck on one aspect after which there’s people having it giant on buses and vans on the opposite aspect. I noticed the couple about 40 toes away. They had been clearly loving one another. I don’t know what’s on the tip of that finger.
I didn’t communicate to the folks within the photograph. What you’re making an attempt to do as a documentary photographer is say one thing about the best way persons are, not the best way they want to be. When you ask anyone for those who can take their {photograph} they’ll say sure and pose and current themselves in a manner they’d favor to be seen. Why would you wish to try this? It’s not what you noticed.
Alan Lodge’s CV
Born: Luton, Bedfordshire, 1953.
Skilled: BA (hons) and MA in Pictures, Nottingham Trent College.
Influences: “David Hoffman, Homer Sykes, Adrian Arbib, Edward S Curtis, Dorothea Lange, Don McCullin.”
Excessive level: “Stonehenge free pageant, the summer time solstice of 1984.”
Low level: “The Battle of the Beanfield, June 1985.”
High tip: “{Photograph} your mates and tribe. File police stop-and-searches and different wrongdoings.”
