It seems I’ve been remiss keeping my blog up-to-date! Well, yes, I have been busy this summer. I shot several shows including one up in Red Wing at the beautiful Sheldon Theatre. I also shot my first Bat Mitzvah which was fun and interesting and a learning experience.
Oh, and I just returned last week from a two-week trip to Italy which remains one of my favorite countries. I spent a few days in Roseto Valfortore in the Puglia region (which apparently the English speaking world calls Apulia). I took my small travel camera (the Olympus OM-D EM10 I’ve written about) and still have many photos to cull through. When I do, I am sure I’ll add a new post about the trip. Once I begin talking about it, it’s hard to get me to stop. So be forewarned.
I returned with a couple days to try adjusting to the time change before shooting Rock of Ages at the Civic. This is one of those lets use all this cool music and wrap a plot around it kind of shows. None of the seriousness of Fiddler or Cabaret. What it has is fun music and almost as much energy as a four year old!
While other shows will sometimes have the band on stage, here they’re a more integral part of the show. That’s apparent right from the start when the guitarists are downstage center at the beginning of the show. As soon as I saw this and began shooting, my reaction was, “this is like shooting a concert!” That realization flipped a switch, and I then shot the show mostly as though it was a concert. Quite differently from my normal show photography mode.
Where I’m normally a stickler for straight, level photos, here I was shooting all sorts of angles. Instead of lots of long-lens shots, I was shooting much of it wide angle, in-your-face.
Among other things, this meant I really needed to move around a lot, running from one side to the other. That things happen quickly increasing the necessity of moving.
So it was different. And different can be good. In this case, it was a ton of fun to photograph.
Like most musicals, there were cool costumes and lighting. Unlike most musicals, the costumes included a lot of long hair – the music is from the 1980s hair metal era – and the lighting was often supplemented with smoke.
It all added together to make for some interesting photos.
There were the typical challenges, though, like bright spots and some LED lights down front that have to be dealt with. Mostly, those are things I have worked out. I could spend my time thinking how to shoot a particular scene and where to position myself.
There were a handful of photos that struck me as good black and white candidates. With the vivid colors, it sometimes takes something of a leap of faith to throw that away and go monochromatic. But a photo will sometimes speak to me and push me over that hurdle to give it a try.
All-in-all, it was a great way to get back into the routine after my vacation. There are three more weekends of shows. If you like live rock music and like when it pulls you in and you feel you are a part of the experience, you have to go! Oh – and I saw it as an audience member on opening night. I don’t think I’ve ever been to another show in which everyone in the audience was on their feet before the curtain calls began. So, yeah, it’s like that.
More to come. Time to work on my Italy photos now…
