6400

Ash Code is a Dark Wave band from Italy, actually form Napoli. They were playing here in March, opening for French band Corpus Delicti. I could not resit to go back to concert shooting after a very long hiatus.

I wasn’t sure how much gear the venue would allow me to bring in, so I settled for one lens one body set. Namely the LeicaM6 classic and the summicron 50mm v5. My favourite provider had no more Kodak TMZ 3200 so I bought two rolls of Ilford 3200 for the whole show.

The venue is 229 at 229 Great Portland and the evening organized by Reptile. I had no problem checking the camera in. I had set the body to 6400 ISO, but I will come back to this later.

The concert was great. Ash Code, produces some dancy tunes, not very remote to what Sisters of Mercy would have done, with a bit more synthwave side. Maybe a better comparison could be found in the direction off some 80’s belgian bands , remote cousins of Neon Judgement or Parade Ground.

They deliver a pretty good show, Alessandro and Claudia taking turns to the mic. Although I am pretty new to their music, that was a very enjoyable.

The scene was quite dark with a lot of back light, so not super ideal, but access to the front of the stage was super easy. I shot a concert of a friends band with the same set-up a few years back and I realised that the only good shots are those where there are both dark areas and highlighted ones, there is not point shooting a scene without contrast, whatever the ISO.

I also had a discussion with a pro about the value of metering : because most of the scene is in the dark, your meter will be fooled and try to over expose. So having shot the rolls at 6400 ISO I had them processed at box speed, actually pulling the film or compensating by -1 stop ( there is no compensation setting on the M6 ). I think that was a wise choice. Because most of the shots were taken at 1/125 f.2 or f2.8, I have a fantasy of setting the speed and aperture once for all and not to bother, but I was told otherwise.

More on on Ash Code:

Discogs : https://www.discogs.com/artist/3844956-Ash-Code

Bandcamp : https://ashcode.bandcamp.com/music

Oh great party afterwards by the Reptile team, but it takes too long to recover past a certain age.

2019-32-m6-21-15 — Devotees waiting outside the temple

You can read more about the Fire Walking Ceremony in my post from 2014 (here). In short it is a Indian festival honoring the Hindu goddess Sri Draupadi, who is the wife of the five Pandava brothers who walked on hot coals to prove her purity.

2019-32-m6-21-5 — Devotees waiting outside the temple

Devotees go through a purification period and on the day of the festival they walk from Little India where they get blessing and protective amulets to the SRI MARIAMMAN TEMPLE in Chinatown where they walk through the coals of the fire pit. After this they go at the back of the temple where they discard they protection and offer to the god the beads necklace they wear since the beginning of the cleansing period.

2019-32-m6-21-6 — Devotee entering the temple

This is the 3rd time I am going to the festival. As I mentioned in my last post, total respect to the devotees. I went in the evening as usual with my friend Matte Lim.

2019-32-m6-21-8 — Devotee entering the temple

This is my second or third roll of this film. The first attempt was so so. This is supposedly a new film, replacing the old TMZ 3200 discontinued in 2012. I think the film works well for scenes with good contrast and some lighted parts ; if your scene is grayish you wont get much on the picture.