"Lightning in a Bottle" Festival: A musical, cultural and visual cornucopia. - Tobin Photography

What happens when you gather the world’s greatest musicians, painters, dancers, and performers of all kinds? Quite simply: the colorful blooming of a culture of community and full-out self-expression.  Having had the great pleasure of participating in two of the Do Lab‘s Lightning in a Bottle festivals to date, I can say without a doubt, that these gatherings are like no other on earth.

Here, community is cultivated and honored with a focus upon environmental sustainability and social justice. Here, personal expression is explored and life is celebrated in a way that feels both primal, and yet progressive. It feels as though people here are living together as one community, in a way that harkens back to earlier times of humanity (with edgier style, of course), and yet somehow that it points the way to a way of life that is possible for the future.

Photographically, I am concerned here, with much the same subject matter as I am at weddings: the people. I love to be with them, to photograph them, to see their emotions and spirit shine through their shimmering faces, illuminating my life and my camera with love and joy.