Big Ears 2026 Shot On Film

We just got back from Tennessee the other day, and we’re still recovering. It was our second year attending Big Ears in Knoxville, and the festival continues to make the case for having the greatest lineup of any event in the country. Everything from the layout to the venues and the additional scheduling of art exhibitions, film screenings, and discussion panels is organized so masterfully. The biggest issue is that we can never see it all. What we do catch is so overwhelming that it takes a minute to really process and organize our thoughts on it, not to mention the endless photographs shot at dozens of performances over the 4-day weekend.

All that will be coming together momentarily. For now, I’m posting this collection of film photos that I shot during the festival. Over the last couple of years, I’ve begun carrying a film camera around with me to shows when I remember. It’s been an interesting exercise to revisit the medium, which I hadn’t used in many years and never employed much for concert photography. I shot everything we saw on digital and much more thoroughly, but I did come away with a collection of analog shots for some of the key acts. What I like about film, and what I continue to be reminded of, is that so much of its power lies in its ability to capture mood and energy. The reason that I don’t typically crack my reviews out as quickly as some others might is that I’m focused on relaying something similar, something that encompasses the feeling and experience of attending something like Big Ears more than simply the logistics and details. Hopefully, the final results will reflect those efforts.

In the meantime, here is some photo evidence of what we saw from a Wayne White art exhibition at the Knoxville Museum of Art, to Los Angeles jazz quintet, SML performing in the round in the center of a defunct Greyhound station. I’ll be pleased if the photos provided here offer even a fraction of insight into the Big Ears experience.

Please enjoy. You can CLICK HERE to read our extensive multi-part review from Big Ears 2025.