This is the final entry in the analogue series on the Steelfest Open Air Festival 2025, taken with a fully mechanical Olympus OM2n camera from 1979. The post has been delayed for a number of personal reasons, because who cares?

This is the second time I’ve written this entry, and I’ve learned that doing things at night time might not be such a good idea. When I’m tired after a long day, I just sound like an angry old man yelling at the clouds for no good reason.

Well, lets begin, I was not entirelly satisfied with this batch and I simply thrashed the manufacturer on my previous writting. I don’t really get why everyone’s so hyped up about the Ildford rolls. I get that the aesthetic might be appealing to a lot of people, but I think they lose their impact and power when used in black metal, death metal or any other metal context.

Contrast, thats the key. Or may be, since the current trend is underespoxing photos to almost unseable pics and using a high contrast for a powerful darks & blacks tones. For me Ilford rolls produce photos that are far away from the pretty much, standarized metal imagenery & aesthetics.

To sum up this little experiment, which I’ll keep running, I’d say Kodak comes out top for contrast values. Too bad I have 4 Ilford rolls left.

Before I jump to the photos from the festival, big shout and eternal thanks to Sini and all her family for hosting me on their AirBnB. Now, for you all steelfesters. If you want to travel to Finland in the following years and want a genuine finnish experience with woods, sauna, a lake etc. let me highly recommend you this place. Took me more than expected to say a thank you but hopefully, this will bring more business in the future for them and they deserve it.

So, This year’s Steelfest was a very very last minute travel for me because, well, family, life and reasons. So I didnt had many options and I was very very happy to find out this AirBnB. I hardly use this platform because I prefer hotels but I had no other choice 10 days before the festival. Very pleased to get something nearby, just 10 kilometers away and 15 minutes by car ride. Actually, my wife did the whole thing for me.

So, first surprise came after arriving to Hyvinkää and I gave the address to the taxi driver: Kylä-Katilantie 181.

I will never forget that stare and the question that came afterwards on mid ride when i was trying to do a small talk.

‘why are you going there?’

Im just staying at an AirBnB.

His laughs. well, It happens the compund is a recovering center for addictions, alcoholics, drug addicts etc. Which is basically no joke, if you ever suffered from any addiction like myself, or worked with someone, or seen a friend spiraling down on this.. you will know how hard it is to reach the point to seek help.

So, the place was lovely, extremelly calm surrounded by a forest. Actually you get there on a dirt road without asphalt. I was scared first time we left the asphalt road asking myself where the fuck Im going. But let me highly recommend you this host and place, they even let me a bike to ride to the lake which was a great way to spend the morning. Only downer was getting to the place since I didnt rent a car, but Sini gave a ride to the festival every single day and I came back by taxi, which was 30 euros per night. About 4 beers at the festival. Totally worth it.

I’m going to pause for a minute because I want to chat about this photo. As I said above, it’s pretty much explained there. When you’re setting up a new roll, you need to wind it forward. This isn’t a fully winded frame (a roll has 36 frames, so 36 photos). This effect is more noticeable in the last picture than the first one. I’d also like to mention that I used a different lens for this Korgonthurus pic, a Tanrom 80-210mm. So, it’s a telephoto lens. I tried it out, and it’s a pretty slow lens, but the images it produces are sharp and clear. But since it’s fully manual, it’s a bit slow for dynamic environments, just like metal shows. So there aren’t many pictures with it, but I’m really pleased with how this turned out. There is no phothosop or whatsoever in here.