A blend of photography and music
heavy metal vocalists growl into the mike and classical violinists lose themselves in their music; drummers drum and guitarists strum while bathed in strobe lights, the audience looks on, fists pumping the air.
Sachini comes from a family of “wildlife fanatics” and her parents will tell you that she first got into photography as a toddler. Their attempts to placate her with a toy camera didn’t work and it wasn’t long before she was using a rudimentary point and shoot, taking pictures like her dad. Though she would take breaks from photogra- phy (one inspired by having to lug kilos of her father’s photography equipment around Pompeii in Italy) Sachini began to rediscover her love of the medium when she started taking pictures at concerts. She says that the images were her attempt to support and encourage the musicians, who at that time weren’t part of the mainstream music scene in Sri Lanka.
Sachini herself has become increasingly invested in photography. She’s graduated from her little point and shoot to a Canon EOS-7D and is slowly adding to her collection of lenses so that she can manage low light situations and wide angle shots. Taking pictures at a gig itself is always a challenge. There’s the technique to be mastered but it helps that Sachini has been for so many shows that she knows her musicians well. For instance, when Stigmata plays Jazz Theory, she knows w exactly when guitarist Tenny will jump in the air; she’s talked classical pianist Eshantha Joseph Peiris into allowing her backstage and has perfected a “poker face” that she puts on just before ploughs through the head banging metal heads to get as close to the stage as she can.
In fact, Sachini has so many pictures