One of the most difficult event photography assignments that a professional photographer gets is live performance photography. The photographer is often faced with challenges ranging from poor lighting to impossible vantage points. As a professional we have to deliver great photographs under some of the most trying conditions.
In my opinion, the most difficult performance photography assignments is dance photography and fashion shows. These two types of events are going to stretch the photographer and the equipment to the limit to deal with the conditions at the venue.
Most venues are not lit with photography in mind. The lighting normally is set to convey a mood or atmosphere for the event. This is understandable. The event is not necessarily put on for the benefit of the pro photographer. It is put on for the enjoyment of the patrons. As a professional the photographer has to adapt to the conditions that are presented.
Usually the single biggest challenge is lighting. Some event promoters, especially in the dance world, mistakenly believe that to create a “dramatic” stage they must lower the lighting. Some take the starvation of stage lighting so far that patrons in the back of the house can not clearly see the performer. But they do have a “dramatic stage”
To be totally fair, a close friend of mine, Jessica Dawn, who is a trained and very capable stage manager said in reply to a post that I had made on a similar subject over at Tribe.net said that “Theater is not a photo shoot. Theater is about creating mystery and well, drama. So it’s two different animals”
She is totally correct ! But drama is created more effectively and truly more dramatically with the addition of light not the removal of light. But I digress The bottom line is we have to deal with the conditions presented.
How to deal with light starved stage conditions you may ask?
Many photographers first inclination is to break out the trusty speed light and a new set of Energizers and hope for the best. Or worst pop up that 3/4 of an inch wide flash on their camera.
To my way of thinking flash at a performance is a option of last resort, total hopelessness and complete despair. Why?
Shadows - ugly and out of place shadows. Remember the smaller the lighting source the harsher the shadow … so the on camera pop up thingie is going to deliver some real intense shadowing. Even with larger more powerful speed lights the shadowing is going to be impressive unless tou get that flash off tof the camera and control it some way. (the Strobist solution)
Health - I actually had a event promoter ask not to use a flash during a event because a couple of the performers were epileptic and the repeated flash could be harmful to them. Not something that I ever thought about but a concern that has to be taken into account.
Being a pain in the butt. On a live show I normally shoot between 400 and 600 images with that many flashes the venue would start looking like Studio 54. And I surely will be dis-invited to their next event !
So unless you have been gifted with a Nikon D3 how are you going to cope ?
Kill the flash - it is evil
Crank up the iso. I very rarely shoot above 1000iso (unless I can avoid it) Most of the time … surprisingly you can usually get away with 1K unless the stage is lit by a 150 watt light bulb.
Accept movement - You are going to be shooting at slower that normal shutter speeds sometimes in the 1/30 to 1/60 range. Time your shots so they are at the peak of motion. But know that you will get some motion blur.
Don’t make motion pictures- It is almost a waste of time to fire off 30 frames a second to attempt to get the “killer” shot . Watch the performer, listen to the music , the shot will come. Here is a big hint. LISTEN TO THE BEATS. For most dance forms the best motion will be on a 8 or 4 count.
Expose properly - get off of p-mode (it doesn’t stand for professional) It is evil and it lies to you. Stage lighting by its very nature is contrasty and never even. Your camera’s auto modes are going to attempt to average your exposure to create an acceptable image. What the auto exposure modes will do normally is to produce a grossly over exposed image. Here is a novel idea … shoot Manual - Find a exposure that is acceptable for the dominant lighting on the stage and go from there making quick adjustments as the performer moves around. You will get dramatic images!
Set the white balance. Don’t trust Auto White Balance. Stage lighting is normally around 2600K and 3300K right around the Tungsten range. Unless you have measured a custom white balance your tungsten setting should be safe.
Shoot RAW - RAW mode will give you the latitude to correct in post for WB and the lighting variances a lot easier than JPG. Also you avoid the error that will surely come with the in-camera jpg processor due to the contrasty lighting.
If you keep these essential items in mind, you can capture great looking images in really crappy lighting conditions!
Note: I am sorry about the wrapping around the pictures. I am trying to find a way to fix that
-dave
Today was such a nice day.
I decided to go out a play a bit with the cameras.
I had a conversation a few days ago with a friend about cameras and creating basically snapshots for use on a personal website. I maintained that really, for the web you did not need a “pro” camera to make perfectly good quick photos for website use.
Now I want to make clear, I am not talking about professional commercial photography here, but simple quick snaps.
To prove my point I went out with my workhorse Nikon D200 and my Canon (yes I have a canon) Powershot S45 to find a good example scene to photograph. I made it about 10 feet from my door before I found the right scene.
A little background info on the cameras
The D200 is a Nikon Pro body. Rated at 10.4 MP
The S45 is a older very cool little carry around camera
To make it fair I shot the D200 is basic JPG mode which is its lowest quality setting
The first 2 images were taken in manual mode with both cameras. The settings were calculated using a Sekonic L-358 light meter
The metered exposure was 1/800 at f71.
Actually, the images come out pretty close.
Can you tell which is which?
The one on the left was taken with the S45 the Right one with the D200.
But really no one with a point and shoot camera meters the image and shoots in manual except photo geeks … So lets go full auto.
The shots are slightly different here to take full advantage of the different image size between the 2 cameras
Which one is the D200 image?
If you guessed the one on the right. You are wrong ! It is the one on the left.
On the auto settings the D200 went with a smaller apature value F10 and a slower shutter speed of 1/400th the S45 went f4.5 at 1/800th.
So you see that when apples are compaired to apples for web use …the cameras make no real difference.
Before every point and shoot photographer or every pro photographer flames me to death. here is one last image from the D200. This one is processed and ready for the stock photography world.
So when taking pictures for your personal website or just for fun … don’t worry about a great camera … just worry about great pictures !
There are times when things sneak up and kick you in the butt and the focus of your life becomes redefined.
I was working on a product shoot this afternoon when my kiddo Jordi asked a really simple question. “Why do you like doing this stuff?”. Which caused an immediate Lt. Data like system freeze (complete with rapidly blinking eyes and slightly cocked head) as all available mental resources were redirected to the primary cpu to try to form an answer that could be understood by a 8 year old. The answer that blathered out was something akin to “cause it makes me happy to make other people happy. The best way that I know to do that is to make cool photographs” He said “cool” and scampered off to play on the DS or something far more interesting to an 8 year old.
Considering that I was photographing a relatively mundane electronic component at that time that was not the most astute answer that I could provide.
So, I wanted to take a few minutes to try to answer his question in a manor that really gets to the heart of what I do … and why I do it .
If you poke around the gallery section of the Image Fusion Studio site you will see a comment by a bellydancer that goes by the stage name of Shimmy. The comment was left 08/31/05 at 15:59 and it said simply “thanks for making me look pretty”
“Thanks for making me look pretty.” It still amazes me that one comment left by a random person could have such a profound effect on ones life. But in some small way for some small amount of time that she looked at that image… she felt joy. And that image that she was looking at …I created it. We shared something … we connected for 1 1/60th of a second… and we both were changed. Wow.
Several months later I attended a seminar given by a photographer out of Cape Girardeau, by the name of Joe Craig. His presentation was called “Soul Dance” and in my little mind I went in expecting a seminar on Dance photography. What I left with was a lesson in life as well as photography.
This man has a philosophy that totally transcends just photography. He made a statement in his presentation that his goal when creating a portrait is to “Reach in…grab their heart and pull it out through their eyes”. He wants to capture in that split second their life story, their passion, their emotion, their joy and even their pain and their courage. He proceed to project on the huge screen before a group of 400 photographers images that he had created. Some of those images featured cancer survivors. Most bald . Some visibly sickly. But all of the images had a common characteristic. The people in the images showed strength, passion, and emotion. We saw their hearts brought out right through their eyes.
I don’t mind saying. I cried. The images touched me. They resonated. I connected. They were alegria, joyful. Even with some of the subjects in obvious pain.
There is article written by Dustin Michael on Joe’s site that has a quote by Joe that says “I believe as long as we’re following our purpose, doing what we were born to do, we’re fulfilling our destiny”
I remember a young lady that I did a session with who shall we say had some “life issues” She was on a road that she particularly didn’t want to be on (what that road was isn’t really important) We had a fantastic session. When it came to ordering prints she simply handed me some cash said “you pick them” … A couple of days later when the prints were done I called her to set up delivery. She asked me to meet her in the parking lot of a clinic in Dallas because she would be there waiting for a ride. I handed her the presentation box with 12 prints in them. She looked at each one closely in silence . Put them back in the box and handed the box back to me.
My first reaction was “OH FRIGGING CRAP I have bombed on this shoot”. I asked her the obvious question… “are they that bad?”
Her response “No, they are beautiful … but I don’t know this person in the pictures … they are not me”
I handed her the box back and said “yeah … this is what I saw… this is the “you” trying to get out”.
She called me a year or so later and told me about her new life and her new 3 month old. She said that the images of that “other you” had gotten her off the path that she was on.
To steal from Joe again… photography CAN have a healing power.
Ya know … I have come to the realization that I will never be “a world famous photographer” I will likely never have the chance to turn Whoopi into a genie. And likely the line to my door will remain very short and no BMW 7 series in my driveway, but I hope that I am giving truth to Joe’s quote and following MY purpose.
So Jordi… the answer to your question of why I like doing what I do is … because I am fulfilling my destiny.
And Shimmy… You’re welcome !
Please Visit Joe’s site at http://www.joecraig.com. It is not a big complex site (it is actually only 2 pages from what I can tell) but the front page images are incredible.
Here is the little secret. When I came up with the name Studio Alegria … I was looking at his site.
Image Fusion Studio, an award winning Dallas, Texas based photography studio is in the final phase of a transformation from a consumer focus studio to a strong business focus.
The studio has found that there is a need in the business community for solid and dependable commercial photography, product photography, event and convention photography without the hype and glamour.
“Solid photography is what businesses want. The days of the 50000 buck shoots for a product launch are gone.
Business wants their photographs to look great but wants that look on time and on budget.”
The Image Fusion Team understands the needs of business and is ready to deliver just that.” said Dave Buchanan,
owner of the studio.
The final evolution of the studio’s website located at http://www.imagefusionstudio.com and should be completed by
mid February. The site will feature unique price calculators for the most of the commercial offerings of the studio.
Image Fusion will be one of the very few photography concerns that will make its commercial photography, product photography,event photography and headshot photography pricing available without a cumbersome process.
Image Fusion Studio located in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex is an emerging national leader in creative photography services for business.
You know … I hear a lot about the way that the studio(s) price our photography and honestly the comments are
all across the board.
We have been told that we are so expensive that only Tiger Woods can afford us. Others say that our prices are way too inexpensive. I say that our pricing is is a “fantastic value”.
Here is why.
There are those that believe that after the button is pressed the work on the image is done. That really is not even close to the case. All of our “final images” are very carefully enhanced and managed to bring out the absolute best in the image. They are perfectly color balanced and sharpened to make the images really a finished product. Most of our finals have had at least several hours of very detailed work done to them. And then they are sent to one of the best photographic labs in the country for printing.
That is why our final photographic prints are something special. Some others (like some mall outlets that charge 9.99 for 10 gazillion pictures) literally are printing pictures before you walk out the door. The final product that you get really shows it too.
There are also the “all your pictures on cd for one buck fifdy” and the 7 hour wedding for 350.00 crowd.
Again … they simply cannot offer the level of quality and detail that a business that values it’s reputation
and more importantly its relationships with its clients can.
Well… OK… how about the top side? The “really expensive” photographers.
It really depends on the work that they produce and their perceived value. One of my favorite photographers
in terms of quality of work is Phillip Stewart Charis. His photographs are absolute works of art (not my style but I appreciate them for the incredible workmanship) His sessions were close to 10,000 USD and folks were glad to pay it. They found value in what he did.
There are photographers in the D/FW area that charge $300 for a 8X10. There customers find value in that (that studio normally has really really expensive cars outside). I could very easily price at that level (but don’t worry…I won’t) I want our pricing to be competitive for the folks that we do business with we don’t want to be the most expensive. Just the best !
But pricing tends to have an effect on how a photographer is perceived.
Take a look at this clip.
You are judged a a lot on pricing If you are too cheap then your work MUST be substandard. If you are too expensive then you are way over-priced . The trick is to create value for the customer . We think that we do that.
The bottom line is we have to deal with the conditions presented.
