There's a difference between photographing a concert and photographing a festival, and I didn't fully understand that until I showed up to NICE, a fest in Davis Square in the summer of 2024. It was my first festival — not just as a photographer, but ever — and it hit different than anything I'd shot before.

A concert is one artist, one room, one energy. A festival is dozens of overlapping worlds crashing into each other across stages, sidewalks, and parking lots. One minute you're in a dark venue shooting a band you've never heard of, and the next you're outside in golden hour light watching someone carry a vinyl crate through a crowd. The pace never lets up, and neither can you.

What made NICE special was how local it felt. This wasn't some corporate-backed mega fest — it was 80+ bands, all tied to the Boston scene, playing across a few venues in Somerville over four days. There were no VIP sections or influencer lounges. Just artists, fans, and people who genuinely care about keeping local music alive. You could feel that in every room.

As a photographer, it pushed me in ways a single show never could. I had to adapt to completely different lighting setups every 30 minutes, figure out how to make a quick transition between indoor and outdoor stages, and learn when to stop shooting and just take in what was happening around me. Some of my favorite frames from the entire weekend weren't even of performers — they were of crowds between sets, strangers bonding over a band they just discovered, and the quiet moments backstage when no one was performing yet.

NICE, a fest was the gig that made me feel like I actually belonged in this world. Not because anyone handed me a badge or a title, but because I was there, camera in hand, surrounded by people who love music as much as I do. That's all it took.