By 2012 I had been to Abbey four years running and I had stopped trying to photograph everything. The festival is too large and too varied for comprehensive coverage — there are always three things happening at once and you can only be in one place. What changed this year was my approach: I spent more time in the market area and less time at the arena, and the photographs are better for it.
The falconry display was the highlight. A wedge-tailed eagle — Australia’s largest bird of prey — on a handler’s glove, wings fully spread, looking at the crowd with the particular indifference of something that does not recognise human hierarchy. I was standing about four metres away and I still had to back up to fit the wingspan in frame.
On the market: The medieval market at Abbey is genuinely extraordinary. Armourers, herbalists, jewellers, food vendors, astrologers — people who have been doing this for years and bring the same stall back every time. The palm reader I photographed had been coming to Abbey for over a decade. There is a continuity in these spaces that the combat arena does not have.
On portraits: The rule I apply at costumed events: I only approach people for portraits when they look like they have forgotten the festival is happening around them. The man in the Viking horned helmet was staring at something in the distance, completely absorbed. That moment of inattention is when the face is most honest.
On the combat: The arena combat this year included a particularly good staged duel — one fighter standing over a fallen opponent, sword levelled, the crowd leaning forward. It was the kind of image that looks theatrical but was simply real. I happened to be in the right place.
More Abbey Medieval Festival coverage: Abbey Medieval Festival 2010 · Abbey Medieval Festival 2011 · Abbey Medieval Festival 2014