Mountain Music Magic: A Cinematic Adventure at the Rakh Music Festival

Where did I go this time?

Himalayas are very big and Himachal Pradesh is situated in the borders of India from where I get a call from one of my friends that a music festival is going to be held and I need help to shoot it. Himachal Pradesh is situated in the north of India where Kangra Valley is situated at the feet of Dhauladhar mountain range. There is a place ‘Rakh’ in this valley where this music festival was organized.

Created in adobe photoshop

How do I reach the venue?

I was in Delhi at that time and I got an invitation to shoot this music festival. My friend said that if a lot of people come then some money will also be given to the people shooting after the event. I didn't care about money, I just wanted to go to the mountains. From Delhi I take a bus to Dharamshala which is about 585 km away. I get down from the bus after 12 hours and as soon as I get down, I take a taxi to Rakh village which is my destination.

Features of music festival venue

To organize this festival, the host has chosen a campsite located outside the village. There is a lot to appreciate about this place, like the Dhauladhar mountain range visible from here, which is currently covered with snow, the streams coming from Dhauladhar which have been stopped and made ponds here, there are plum trees here which have not yet planted anything. In the evening, a beautiful sunset is seen in Kangra Valley. The campus and the food prepared here increased the beauty of this place manifold. By the way, this campsite is situated at 1500 meters and this place is 24 km away from Dharamshala.

What did I do at the music festival?

After reaching the venue, I meet my friend who has invited me here. He allots me a camp in which I keep my bag and rest for a while. We have a meeting during lunch in the afternoon in which I am told that I have to take some B-Roll video shots of the stage and surrounding preparations. I am using Canon 77D with 18-55, 50mm prime and tele lens which is 55-250mm. I also have a GoPro which I didn't need. On the event day I have to shoot both photos and videos. On the day of the main event, I mount my camera on a fixed tripod and shoot the entire event with a prime lens. My friend gave me his memory card so that I do not waste time in copying the data after the event.

Apart from me, there are three more people who have come here for the shoot. Some are just going to click photos and some are just going to shoot videos. We all have to dump our cameras and leave. Also going to use a video gimbal and my friend will also take some aerial shots with his drone. Everyone understood their work and we all completed our work properly.

I took some time out and roamed around the campsite, went to the kitchen and saw where food was being cooked in brass utensils in the traditional way, which is called 'Dham' in Mandiali language. Next day the main event goes very well, music artists from different places perform very well. When the weather becomes quite cold after sunset, a fire burning nearby helps in keeping the body warm.

The scale of this music festival is very small, it is not at all like what we see on TV. Here Indian folk music was given priority. All the artists presented Indian music to the audience in a modern way. Starting from 2 pm, the festival continued till 11 pm. I had dinner at 9 o'clock itself. And as soon as the event was over, he gave his camera card to his friend, said good night and entered the sleeping bag kept in the tent and went into the world of dreams.

Disclaimer: This post is originally written in Hindi and I have used Google Translator to tranlate the Hindi text in English. All the photos have been clicked by me from Andriod smartphone POCO F1 and edited in Lightroom/photoshop.