We don’t arrive at Lost Village with a shot list and a couple of cameras.

We arrive knowing the place.

I’ve been photographing Lost Village since its beginning, and now lead the photography team responsible for capturing the festival across its four days. But the work starts long before anyone walks through the gates.

Early in the year, we start pulling the festival apart. What did we see last time? What did we miss? What still feels right? What has become too familiar? We look at the music, the people, the strange little details, the atmosphere and everything that makes Lost Village feel like Lost Village — then work out how to look at it differently.

From there, I build the photographic team and set the creative direction for the season. The team is deliberately made up of photographers with their own eyes and ways of working. We give them a clear visual language, then give them the freedom to go and find things within it.

Because an event this big can’t be photographed from one perspective.

Over the weekend, we are everywhere. In the crowd, behind the scenes, in the woods, in the kitchens, at the stages, around the campfires and in the moments nobody planned for. We capture the obvious, but we’re always looking for what sits just beside it.

The production is fast, considered and slightly chaotic by necessity. My job is to keep the whole thing moving — directing the team, solving problems, responding to what is happening and making sure the photography never loses sight of the bigger picture.

And then, almost as soon as it’s over, we start again.

The archive becomes the reference point for the next chapter. We look at what we made, what stayed with us and where there is room to push the visual language further.

It isn’t event coverage. It’s an evolving photographic world, built in real time by a team of people who know how to find a story when there isn’t one sitting there waiting to be photographed.