ŽEC Fest 2025 in memory of Sven and Nino

This year ŽEC Fest proved once again why it's the heart of Varaždin's alternative scene.
Take the Tides, Expirium, 3 Suns of Aberran, Uruk High and Dodger Artfool rang out at Scena Rogoz, and the crowd's energy showed in the moshpit, the headbanging and the pogo.
There was a bit of everything, from well-known musicians in the crowd, spilt beer and T-shirt sales to the moment a fuse blew and the whole place went silent for a few minutes. But the crew handled it, a drum solo took over and the atmosphere got even better.
That's what keeps the underground scene alive. Rawness.

This time I decided to document everything with just my phone, and not by taking photos but by filming.
The idea was to record the whole moment and later, in post-production, pull out every good frame as a photo.
In a way it's an experiment, but an experiment where every frame has its own story, and that's exactly what I wanted to capture. The story.
It isn't perfect in the technical photographic sense, but that's exactly why it's perfect and authentic. Perfect in its imperfection.
Every bit of grain and motion carries part of the energy that was in the room. Post-production software for correction and effects got it to the style I wanted.

The most important thing for me was that everything I captured made sense in the context of the story.
I didn't film every band, only those whose sound and energy matched the aesthetic I was after.
Specifically, that aesthetic was grunge, noise and a bit of dirt that you can feel in the image too.
So each photo isn't just a frame, but part of a wider narrative about the sound and atmosphere of ŽEC Fest.

It managed to tell the story.
A phone can't beat a camera technically, but it can convey a moment if you know what you're looking for.
If there's emotion, movement and a raw style.
In that sense, a good shot isn't about gear, it's about feeling.
And ŽEC Fest was the perfect testing ground for that: loud music, hard energy and people who live what they play.