Panama with Candy 66: Rehearsal, Concert and My 25th Country

Some trips are about a place. This one was about a band. Candy 66 has been my favorite band for years, and when they played Rock and Folk in Panama City I went with friends to see them, and to photograph them for the 66 community spread across the diaspora. Panama also became my 25th country.

The rehearsal: monochrome, up close

The day before the show, October 13, I shot the rehearsal at Rock and Folk PTY. I went monochrome on purpose. Rehearsals are about faces, hands and concentration, not stage lights, and black and white strips everything back to that.

The concert: color, noise and the pit

On October 14 the room was full and the band was loud. I shot in color and black and white, moving between the front of the stage and the second floor for the wide shots that show the size of the crowd. Fordelucs opened the night before Candy 66 took the stage. Twenty-eight years in, the band’s line still holds: “28 años siempre fuertes.”

Three cameras, zero free hands

I wanted to film the whole night and still shoot stills, so I set it up to keep my hands free. The DJI Osmo Action 5 rode on a mouth mount, filming everything I saw, while my hands worked two cameras:

• Leica Q2 for black and white: intimate, editorial, close to the band
• Sony with a Tamron 28-200mm f/2.8-5.6 for color: one zoom that goes from the wide room to a tight shot of a singer across the stage, without swapping lenses in the pit

That’s why the photos come in two separate sets. The Leica frames feel personal; the Sony frames are faster and grittier, closer to the chaos of the show. The video in the vlog is what my eyes saw, literally. Everything I used is on my kit page.

The film

I also filmed the whole trip for #LoQueMeDaLaGana, my adventure vlog.

The full photo set lives in my portfolio: Candy 66 at Rock and Folk Panamá 2026.

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