Portfolio: Adrian Warren

Things look very different from above. A first glance at this seemingly abstract image and you could be forgiven for thinking you are looking at a mosaic of some sort. But descend 3,000ft to ground level and the reality emerges: one small part of the vast collection of tents that provided shelter for the 170,000-plus visitors to Glastonbury last year.

The picture that most often comes to mind when imagining a music festival is a seething mass of gyrating revellers – just the sort of image the British photographer Adrian Warren was expecting to take, "but at 3,000ft, the thing you notice is the hugely colourful array of tents".

While some detractors feel this regular musical pilgrimage has become a tired cliché, from the air, according to Warren, the festival looks entirely novel. "It's such a contrast," he explains. "One minute you're flying over miles of empty Somerset countryside, then suddenly you come across this mass of humanity that has turned acres of green fields into a temporary city. It's extraordinary. And leaning out the plane taking shots with my camera is hugely exhilarating." 1

For more aerial shots: lastrefuge.co.uk