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So what did you do last night, Sami?
So, last night was pretty interesting.
I went to Northbridge, which is the city's major nightclub/bar district - this will be important later - to take pictures of John Robertson's show, Don't Swallow, at the Blue Room Theatre. (Note to Perth folks: go see it! It's really good!)
I arrived about an hour before the show, so I could set up, work out light levels, etc. It turned out to be extremely fortunate, as I spent at least twenty minutes grappling with the fact that my tripod - which I'd never really used before - appears to be broken. The head just WOULD NOT stay on.
Fortunately, I eventually had the brainwave that I was in a theatre, and if there wasn't a roll of gaffer tape around somewhere, these people were doing it wrong. (Needless to say, when I asked, gaffer tape was procured in seconds.) So I taped the tripod head on place with adequate security for me to be able to use it, and proceeded with working out camera settings for the evening.
I ended up going for full manual mode, which felt all hardcore, but the conditions weren't right for automation - not just for the low-and-changing light levels, and the moving subject, but also the fact that sometimes the background was charcoal-coloured curtains, and sometimes it included a six-foot high white image of a hand - between them they threw out the camera's light metering crazily. (Also, John was wearing dark clothing but has white skin. My camera's software is crying right now.)
Whereas I could cope because I am awesome. I ended up going with a fixed ISO speed and aperture and adjusting to light changes with shutter speed variation (partly because I knew, from having seen the show, that he moved around less when the lights were lower).
Both John and I were assured by Jo, the stage manager, that if we got "two good shots" we had absolute and total success.
I'm pretty sure we got those two good shots - but it'll be fun picking them out of the 1,647 pictures I took.
*cough*
Personal highlights of the evening for me, before the later bit I'm going to tell you about:
- John, rehearsing a bit of the show he'd cut the previous evening because byplay with the sign 'terp took up so much (hilariously well-occupied) time, and which, therefore, I hadn't heard before, and grinning as I, still messing around taping my tripod into usability, was giggling in the corner all the way through. (Fortunately, having someone laugh at the jokes does not disturb the preparation of a comedian, or at least not John.)
- The one guy in the audience who wasn't far from me and my camera, who kept looking at me, and seemed to find it funnier if I was laughing at the jokes. I wondered if he assumed it *had* to be hilarious if the photographer was also laughing. (It is true that I laughed much less last night than I did the night before; I enjoy good jokes I've heard before, but I don't laugh as much, and in any case last night I was preoccupied with concentrating on my camera. I still laughed a lot. At least some of the pictures that came out blurry are John's fault for being funny.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
harveystoat I WOULD TAKE BETTER PICTURES OF YOUR COMEDY SHOW IF YOU DIDN'T KEEP MAKING ME LAUGH.)
- Feeling almost like a real photographer, as I tested light levels and shot options and so on. It's easier, in the digital age, I acknowledge that freely - I could take many hundreds of shots, I didn't have to change film, I could see how my pictures were doing by pressing the review button and *looking* at a small version of them, which is more than adequate for checking how light and colour balances are doing. But I was thinking about light, and composition, and photographing a performance I was attending classed as stage crew. (This was actually an important point; the show was sold out, but venue capacity limits allow for six stage crew in addition to the audience.)
- Being able to see the show for the second time, and pick which bits are spontaneous and which bits are scripted. I think John is a really gifted comic, because a lot of the stuff that feels spontaneous the first time you see it is stuff he's written in advance and is just playing really well, and the stuff that's spontaneous is consistently funny. (Seriously, Perth people, go see his show.)
After the show I copied off all the images I'd taken to Jo's laptop, then headed home. On the way back to the train station, my attention was caught by the sound of singing to acoustic guitars. Below the steps of the James Street Cultural Centre was pulled up a van, labelled on the sides for \DrugArm WA Information & Support. (Looking up their website, I see they're a Christian organisation, but they appear to be a Christian organisation in the "... and that's a good thing" sense.)
On the steps and around the area, a surprising number of people were gathered. A couple of children included. I took a couple of photos - I'll put them up later, right now I have to run to take my tripod back to the shop while they're still open today.
I went to Northbridge, which is the city's major nightclub/bar district - this will be important later - to take pictures of John Robertson's show, Don't Swallow, at the Blue Room Theatre. (Note to Perth folks: go see it! It's really good!)
I arrived about an hour before the show, so I could set up, work out light levels, etc. It turned out to be extremely fortunate, as I spent at least twenty minutes grappling with the fact that my tripod - which I'd never really used before - appears to be broken. The head just WOULD NOT stay on.
Fortunately, I eventually had the brainwave that I was in a theatre, and if there wasn't a roll of gaffer tape around somewhere, these people were doing it wrong. (Needless to say, when I asked, gaffer tape was procured in seconds.) So I taped the tripod head on place with adequate security for me to be able to use it, and proceeded with working out camera settings for the evening.
I ended up going for full manual mode, which felt all hardcore, but the conditions weren't right for automation - not just for the low-and-changing light levels, and the moving subject, but also the fact that sometimes the background was charcoal-coloured curtains, and sometimes it included a six-foot high white image of a hand - between them they threw out the camera's light metering crazily. (Also, John was wearing dark clothing but has white skin. My camera's software is crying right now.)
Whereas I could cope because I am awesome. I ended up going with a fixed ISO speed and aperture and adjusting to light changes with shutter speed variation (partly because I knew, from having seen the show, that he moved around less when the lights were lower).
Both John and I were assured by Jo, the stage manager, that if we got "two good shots" we had absolute and total success.
I'm pretty sure we got those two good shots - but it'll be fun picking them out of the 1,647 pictures I took.
*cough*
Personal highlights of the evening for me, before the later bit I'm going to tell you about:
- John, rehearsing a bit of the show he'd cut the previous evening because byplay with the sign 'terp took up so much (hilariously well-occupied) time, and which, therefore, I hadn't heard before, and grinning as I, still messing around taping my tripod into usability, was giggling in the corner all the way through. (Fortunately, having someone laugh at the jokes does not disturb the preparation of a comedian, or at least not John.)
- The one guy in the audience who wasn't far from me and my camera, who kept looking at me, and seemed to find it funnier if I was laughing at the jokes. I wondered if he assumed it *had* to be hilarious if the photographer was also laughing. (It is true that I laughed much less last night than I did the night before; I enjoy good jokes I've heard before, but I don't laugh as much, and in any case last night I was preoccupied with concentrating on my camera. I still laughed a lot. At least some of the pictures that came out blurry are John's fault for being funny.
harveystoat I WOULD TAKE BETTER PICTURES OF YOUR COMEDY SHOW IF YOU DIDN'T KEEP MAKING ME LAUGH.)- Feeling almost like a real photographer, as I tested light levels and shot options and so on. It's easier, in the digital age, I acknowledge that freely - I could take many hundreds of shots, I didn't have to change film, I could see how my pictures were doing by pressing the review button and *looking* at a small version of them, which is more than adequate for checking how light and colour balances are doing. But I was thinking about light, and composition, and photographing a performance I was attending classed as stage crew. (This was actually an important point; the show was sold out, but venue capacity limits allow for six stage crew in addition to the audience.)
- Being able to see the show for the second time, and pick which bits are spontaneous and which bits are scripted. I think John is a really gifted comic, because a lot of the stuff that feels spontaneous the first time you see it is stuff he's written in advance and is just playing really well, and the stuff that's spontaneous is consistently funny. (Seriously, Perth people, go see his show.)
After the show I copied off all the images I'd taken to Jo's laptop, then headed home. On the way back to the train station, my attention was caught by the sound of singing to acoustic guitars. Below the steps of the James Street Cultural Centre was pulled up a van, labelled on the sides for \DrugArm WA Information & Support. (Looking up their website, I see they're a Christian organisation, but they appear to be a Christian organisation in the "... and that's a good thing" sense.)
On the steps and around the area, a surprising number of people were gathered. A couple of children included. I took a couple of photos - I'll put them up later, right now I have to run to take my tripod back to the shop while they're still open today.