WOMAD 2026

A few weeks ago I was at the 2026 edition of the WOMAD festival on its lovely new site, Neston Park.

This festival has featured in a number of posts here over the years so I thought a quick write up from this year was in order;

• WOMAD: Rain, Sun, Rain & 50-140
• WOMAD
• Primed for WOMAD
• WOMAD – A quick Mono cut…

My kit list contained

• X100VI
• X-H2
• X-H2s
• 14mm F2.8
• 56mm F1.2
• 90mm F2
• A film Olympus OM10 (but more of that in the future).

The sun was, bright, it was hot and the light was harsh, making “pretty” atmospheric images tricky, as I found out on the first morning;

However, once the sun started to set, the light and atmosphere transformed and I headed out at about 9pm on the hunt armed only with the X100….

I was very happy with how these images looked and felt; warm and inviting, helped with the polar pro combined black mist and polarisor.

The next day it was on to the music; I love the energy..

There was a definate theme of Sunflowers throughout the weekend, as witnessed in the first batch of images, driven by a field of the summer flowers in the centre of the site. The second evening I could not resist heading to the field (when I probably should have been photographing people or performances).

I added to the sunflower images the next day..

I had to cut my weekend short to get back to Worthing for an early meeting on Monday (about renting a new studio which I unfortunately failed to secure).

WOMAD never disappoints, it’s a festival I love shooting (and is actually the only one I camp at). While I have cut down the number of festivals I shoot year on year, this is one I hope to attend and document for many years to come.

More soon.

J