Get high at Glastonbury: the Guardian's aerial shots of the festival

The Guardian

3 hours ago

It can be difficult to get an elevated view at Glastonbury. There are various high-up platforms around the site, and of course there are the hills that give a view down into the valley where the festival nestles. But for much of the weekend you are in a crowd, looking up. Guardian photographer David Levene therefore used an eight metre-high 'monopod' – a sort of highly stable pole with his camera stuck on top – to create elevation and give us a better sense of the scale of the crowds.
I wanted to get a slightly different viewpoint of the things that have become very familiar to our readersDavid Levene
The crowds pack in tightly during the big stage events, such as Rod Stewart on Sunday afternoon, which was many festivalgoers' main event of the weekend – even if the Guardian gave it a mixed review.
The various routes through the festival remain busy at all hours, and can be disorienting as people follow the crowds or a map. An old railway track forms the main pedestrian artery running through the site.
Finding 'clean' shots can be a real challenge at Glastonbury. Visually, so much is thrown at you wherever you look, and photographically, pretty much everything is an assault on the sensors! One way around this problem can be to get up high, in order to achieve more depth, balance and spacing
As the sun set on Sunday evening, we got perhaps the best 'golden hour' of the weekend.
Glastonbury-on-Sea is an area by the Park stage with a fairground feel, complete with a pier jutting out from the hillside.
The giant bug at Arcadia – made from an old Royal Navy helicopter – is surrounded by dancers who look almost ant-like from this viewpoint. These two images were taken from the same point with the camera turned around.
Shangri-La is a busy, wildly creative area in the south-east corner of the festival, full of sound systems where people party until the early hours.
The Prodigy closed the the Other stage with an energetic show, and Olivia Rodrigo finished the festival on a five-star high. David was there to catch an elevated view of the firework display at the end.
Towers and platforms are few and far between and become well used by anyone with a smartphone or camera in their hands. Drones are a big no-no for site authorities, so the monopod solves the problem. It's a beast even when collapsed, but well worth the bother so I can choose virtually any spot on the site to shoot a raised picture