Le Futur Pompiste

Le Futur Pompiste playing at Pikku Torre last Friday.

I hate to post a picture of only “the girl” when there were five more members playing but in all honesty this is one of the few shots that came out with any detail at all because of the lighting.

When I planned for this event I had a look at my trusty exposure guide that I keep in my camera bag, according to it spotlighted subjects should be around EV 9. If I pushed 400 ASA film to 1600 ASA this would give me a good 1/250 second exposure and plenty of room to play either way. Confident I had it all down I went to the local camera store and thought I’d get some Tri-X for that pretty grain and good lattitude. My first problem would be that not a single store in town had either Tri-X or Ilford HP5 in stock, some offered to order some for me but that of course was of no use, I would have to settle for T-Max.

When I came to the gig I sat down and had a beer with a friend in the band and we talked about this and that, among other things how tiny and cramped the corner they were supposed to play in was. I also noticed there was not much in the way of lighting which was a bit worrying. So I had a quiet debate with myself and decided that if it came to it could probably push the film to 3200 ASA. When the gig started the late Finnish summer light was gone and the only light available was a strange purple floorlamp and what light was spilling in from the rest of the pub. Even at 3200 ASA the meter in the camera was flipping between “Low” and 1/8:th of a second at the maximum aperture, the autofocus was going all over the place and the bands little fan club of friends was crowding the tiny space infront of the stage.

So this picture was taken crouching a meter or so from the band with manual focusing at anywhere between one and one eighth of a second - all things considered it came out all right but next time I might consider bringing a flash.