Helsinki Metal Festival 2025 photography

Helsinki Metal Festival 2025 ran over two days, 8 and 9 August, and it was two festivals in one. The two halves looked nothing alike. Inside the arena the light was low and hard: smoke, lasers, blue and orange wash, and a crowd that is mostly a dark mass until a spotlight finds a raised fist. Outside, an open-air stage sat in daylight, with flames at the front of the stage and a long orange runway leading in from the gate.

I photographed the bands from the pit and the side of the stage, so the crowd stays in the frame behind them. The festival around the stage was just as much to shoot. The crowd is half the show. Fans came with face paint and fake blood, patched vests and band shirts, and spent the breaks in the food queue or sitting on the tarmac in the shade. A wrestling ring had been set up in the middle of the festival, and I spent time there too.