Photographer: Sarah Kastrau
Sites: www.sarahkastrau.de
www.facebook.com/sarahkastrau
Based in: Bochum, Germany
One
Hexis
The show took place at the AZ (short for Autonomes Zentrum/autonomous center) a place I’ve been a regular visitor to since I was 15-year-old punk rock kid. Although my taste in music has changed over the time, the venue has remained the same comfortable place and survived all attempts of officials to shut it down. The room for shows itself is placed in a former horse stable with bare brick walls, dark cobble stone floors worn down by centuries of use and almost no natural light. Hexis added an insane amount of artificial fog to the scenery, turned of all lights (except for a massive strobe battery placed behind the drummer) and created the perfect setting for a horror movie. The following assault on eyes and ears was short, intense and the most difficult photo conditions I had so far.
Two
Coliseum
If this photo where a song, it would be one of the more melancholic, quite ones like ‘Late Night Trains’ or ‘Love Under Will’. They played at the Underground in Cologne to a rather small audience, but put on one hell of rocking show. Eventually, I got so carried away that I forgot about the time. You can only leave peel-apart film unpeeled for a limited time, if you wait too long with separating the positive from the paper negative they stick together, and the photo is ruined. This happened to me, but I just had to watch the encore. Luckily the negative survived.
Three
Light Bearer
I think this was my 3rd time watching them live. Despite the fact that I like their records, there is something about their live performances that can’t be transferred to a record. They literally emit a passion and positive energy and put a smile on everyone’s face in the audience, including my slightly grumpy self.
Four
By The Patient
This photo is the perfect example of why I love the Land Camera so much. From a technical point of view, it’s a mess. It’s blurry, the persons are completely off center, and because the photo got stuck while pulling it out of the camera (which happens on a regular basis) the developer emulsion spread unevenly and left marks and stripes. Certainly not what I had in mind when I took the photo, but I love those ‘accidents’. Every photo that I peel apart is like a little surprise, and I can never say for surer what I will get, which is something that no high-tech digital camera can provide.
Five
Ritual
One of the last photos that has been ever taken of this great band since it was their farewell show. Tiny location, full to the brim with people dancing and singing along and thus, shitty conditions for taking a photo. No chance for me to sneak upfront without risking of damaging my camera. In the end I climbed on the pile of crates upon which the speakers were placed. While standing on one foot on a small ledge not wider than 10 centimeters with the other foot midair, trying to grab some hold with my elbow while holding the camera I took the photo. To this day it remains a mystery to me why I didn’t fell off and tore the whole thing down, the chances for damage were quite high. The photo became one of my all-time favorites.
Six
Amenra
In short, Amenra are part of one of the reasons why I took up photography. Somewhere in the winter of 2011 I stumbled upon the photos Olli Bery had taken of them. I was blown away by his work and the first thought that came to my mind was “I want to create something like this.”. I had no plans to become a photographer at that point, but the idea never really left my head. So when I received my photo permission for their show in Berlin I was really excited…and scared. To make it even worse I had already scheduled the two days prior to the show for a festival and when I finally arrived in Berlin, after only 3 hours of sleep, I could barely keep my eyes open. It didn’t matter, upon the first notes of “The shapeless pain” all tiredness and panic were gone. The show itself was awesome, but fortune was not on my side. The place was too crowded to peel the photos, and when I arrived at my hostel it was already too late, all photos had died and ugly death. Back home the negatives turned out to be no better and in fact I was so disappointed that I swore not to publish them. Eventually,I recalled the advice to always examine ones own work with some time lag. One week later I gave them a second chance and it changed my mind. Some work just needs time to grow on you.
Seven
Cologne Cathedral
I’m not a fan of organized religion, but I can’t deny that the cologne cathedral is, despite it’s purpose, a beautiful piece of architecture. The dimensions are hard to grasp when seen from ground level, but climbing up a flight of stairs for about half an hour until I reached the top gave me a sense of how huge this building actually is. The photo itself was taken at the very top (well, as far as the official tourist route goes). Unfortunately,I visited the place on a Saturday morning when hundreds of tourists had the same idea which made it rather annoying, especially since people used to stop in the mid of the stairwell to stare at their stupid smartphones. I wonder why they paid the entrance in the first place, I doubt they actually noticed their surroundings. I’ll have to visit the place again, there were so many details (like images of mythological creatures on the doors) I could not capture.
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