"The pictures you make are like a connect-the-dots game that becomes the line of your life, as real and vibrant as the lines on your face and hands. We tell stories with our pictures. In turn, our pictures tell our story - what we did, and how well or poorly we did it, and very significantly, if we stuck with it." - Joe McNally
Into the Belly of the Beast, Lightly Armed
Last night, at about 2:30 a.m. my "best girl ever" daughter Katherine and I got back from the Coachella Music Festival, the annual alternative music fest in Indio, California, that draws kids from all over for three days and nights of ear-splitting, brainstem-wilting music and other fun activities. Going to Coachella was the greatest thing Katherine could possibly imagine, but it took moving heaven and earth to convince her mom and me that she could go. The solution, which was validated by several other random and dispassionate folks who offered their opinion on the matter, was that mom would by the tickets and I would also go. And while "alternative" music isn't exactly my cup of tea, I looked on it as an opportunity to test a couple of cameras that I could legally carry in with me, as the posted rules prohibited anything that looked like a professional camera on the premises. So in I went, armed only with my trusty Leica D-Lux 5, and my new iPhone.
The D-Lux 5 is a nice camera for a point and shoot, outfitted as it is with a Leica Vario-Summicron lens that will go down to f/1.2. It's feature-rich and very flexible. What it isn't is rapidly responsive, which is exactly what you need in a target rich environment like a music festival, where interesting faces and images flash across your field of view and then rapidly vanish. It also doesn't have the reach you need to see the action on the stage when you're about half a mile back. I desperately wanted the reach and the responsiveness of my Canon 7D fitted with the 70-200mm f/2.8. (Heck, I coulda used 800mm for some of the acts.) The iPhone cam is also much better than my previous DroidX; the sunset image above was captured with the iPhone, and managed through iPhoto, Nik Dfine 2.0 and HDR Efex Pro. Not bad for a phone cam.
Ben Jonson's 1614 "Bartholomew Fair" is credited with the first use of the phrase "belly of the beast". He asks, "What do you say to a drum, sir? It is the broken belly of the beast, and the bellows there are his lungs, and these pipes are his throat, those feathers are of his tail, and thy rattles the gnashing of his teeth."
I can honestly say that for the first time in many years, I was left speechless, musically speaking. Also hearing-less. The beast that is Coachella was simply overwhelming. My industrial grade earplugs disintegrated under the barrage. The image to the left was made on the first afternoon, before the rains came, at a central location called the "Do Lab". What they "do" at the "lab" is feature non-headliners who blast dubstep and similar riffs at Atlas rocket decibel levels. Located at the center of the fairgrounds, the bass lines from the Do Lab carry across the entire festival grounds. The only way the other acts can compete with this is to match them decibel for decibel, which they are more than happy to do. Meanwhile, they hose down the crowd with pressure washers.
Having celebrated the 30th anniversary of my 30th birthday last week, I was pretty much at a loss when it came to identifying the dozens of performers on the three-day lineup. Highest on my list of acts to see was the venerable reggae artist Jimmy Cliff, who performed on the main stage early Friday evening, just as the rains came. I got to the main stage early enough to be relatively close (like maybe 100 feet away). Unfortunately, the little Leica didn't quite have the reach I needed to get the performers in tight. But fortunately, each of the five stages at Coachella has two large video screens on either side of the stage, and most people wind up watching a live performance on TV.
For me, the most poignant image of Friday was Jimmy singing "I can see clearly now, the rain is gone...it's gonna be a bright, bright, sunshiny day" while the rain soaked everyone.
I also wanted to see Florence and the Machine, who performed on the Outdoor Stage. I got there in what I thought was plenty of time, but the stage was so far away, she might as well have been in Denver.
Some of the acts did surprise me, in a good way. "St. Vincent" (aka Annie Clark) was news to me, but I enjoyed watching her high-energy performance. Standing off to the side of the tent in which she performed, I was able to capture one decent image of her performance, at -2EV.
At one point, she decided to "crowd surf" as far as her microphone cord would reach. The crowd went predictably nuts, but from my vantage point, all I could get was the image from the video screen taken from the stage as the security guys anxiously hoped nobody would drop her. She never missed a beat.
The main reason Katherine wanted to go to Coachella was to see some of her favorite "dance music" artists, including Alesso, Avicii, Calvin Harris, and Afrojack. There were others, too, but at my advanced age, I can't force myself to remember them. Here's the deal: the tent fills up with amped up kids, the "artist" gets up on a high perch with his turntable/mixing board/whatever he has, and pumps his fists for about an hour or more, while a light show flashes and the same incessant bass beat pounds into your brainpan til it has the consistency of naval jelly.
Katherine and I re-enacted the age-old parent/child debate: Me: "How can you listen to that shit? It all sounds exactly the same! You're gonna go deaf! I already am!!" Her: "Daddy, this is the best day of my life!!"
At the end of the three days, we were both exhausted. I drove back home while Katherine slept in the car. She needed to get up for school this morning. While driving back, I riffed on the oft-seen commercial: Coachella tickets - $700; hotel and meals - $300; bonding with your daughter - priceless.
Shooting a National Dance Competition
I shoot a lot of dance. Studio shots, performances, locations, and competitions, you name it. I've shot dozens of dance competitions over the years, ranging from ancient high school theaters to modern high school gyms.
Being designed for performances, the lighting in high school theaters is not generally bad, as long as the school continues to pay the light bill. Sometimes it's not up to par, but usually setting a tungsten white balance on a digital camera will give you a place to start and a fighting chance. Then you have to contend with the dance competition banner in the back. Some are relatively inoffensive while others are just plain garish. But you can deal with it, as long as the company producing the competition allows photography in the first place, which is becoming less and less the norm.
But shooting high school competitions in gymnasiums is a whole 'nuther thing. Even the most modern high school gymnasiums have lighting that cycles between magenta and green color casts. Usually the naked eye doesn't pick up on this cycling, but a shutter speed that's fast enough to freeze the dancers' action will often pick up the color cast. So a burst of three to seven frames will generally give you a magenta-cast exposure, a green-cast exposure, and sometimes a rainbow of magenta, green, and something approaching normal all in one frame. Add to that the fact that the background behind the dancers in a high school gym usually consists of bleachers half-filled with assorted spectators who may or may not be paying attention, plus speakers, trash bins, dance bags, lunch bags, old bags, water bottles, and other dreck, and you have little hope of getting anything that approaches art, no matter how talented and beautiful the dancers are.
And then there's the Anaheim Convention Center, this weekend the home of the USA National Cheer and Dance competition. The preliminary competitions are held either in a dimly lit hotel ballroom, complete with parquet flooring pieced together like every wedding reception you've ever been to, or in the hangar-size trade show hall in the Convention Center itself, which has been outfitted with the aforementioned bleachers, a basketball court (minus the hoops), and color-casting lights.
Then there are the two hired photogs who capture each and every dancer with eight (count 'em, eight) nuclear strobes mounted to the top of the bleachers. (Even at a flash duration of 1/1500 second or faster, you're bound to get at least 10 of their flashes during the weekend.) I don't envy these guys. They probably see about 250 dance performances a day, with anywhere from four to over thirty dancers in each performance. Trying to get something for each dancer is an exercise in futility. They're good, but really all they can do is "spray and pray". By the end of the day, I don't think they can see straight.
After qualifying in regional competitions weeks earlier and competing in the hotel or trade show hall on Friday, the dancers' first goal is to make it to the Finals, held on Saturday night in the Arena at the Convention Center. For photographers, the goal is also to make it to the Finals, because that's where the Good Light is. At this level, these dancers are incredibly talented and hard working. They deserve to be seen performing their art in the best possible environment. Here in the SoCal circuit, that's the Arena. Directional without being harsh, and consistent across the entire performance space, the lighting in the Arena is more than you could hope for. And the environment gives you the choice of photographing against a large clean backdrop with a boatload of trophies if you want that, or shooting into the void if you prefer that (which I do).
Photographing talented dancers in this environment is a dance shooter's dream. You can go for straight visual impact, as in the photo of Cole above, which is devoid of the normal distractions, and her expression and talent practically jump off the photo. Cole is a beautiful dancer, with lines and an expression that are guaranteed to hold your interest. In terms of impact on the judges, I'd be willing to bet that Cole is money.
Or you can tell a visual story, as in the picture of Ian and the Saugus dance team below.
This competition marked the return of Ian Waschak to competitive dance after several weeks sidelined with injury. This routine is one of several he competed over the weekend, and was undoubtedly one of the most challenging and impressive of all. It's an incredibly demanding piece. You can see the pain he's fighting through, and his teammates appear to be caught in it, too. That's not the story of the choreography at all, but it's the truth of this image at this particular moment in time. Ian completely nailed every move, leap, extension, and lift. He literally "left it all on the dance floor", and at the conclusion of the piece, he needed help to get backstage. I've never seen anything like it.
Jordan Matter in LA
For about a year now, I've been looking forward to the possibility of meeting and maybe even doing something with Jordan Matter. If you don't know who he is, Google "Dancers Among Us", which is Jordan's nation-wide journey discovering and photographing amazing dancers doing amazing things in places you wouldn't expect to find dancers. The end product of this project is a book to be published by Workman Publishing and released later this year.
I became aware of Jordan by a roundabout process starting with Joe McNally and David Cooper, both of whom photograph dancers better than I ever will, and whose work inspires me to improve. I often tell people that there are two kinds of photographers, technicians and artists. Technicians can craft a usable frame out of any circumstance, but artists truly create the circumstance they bring to the image, whether by choreographing it or just seeing it in a different way. I'm a pretty decent technician, but I aspire to flex the artistic side of my limited mental faculties. That was apparent in my first print review with Joe McNally in Las Vegas a few years ago, when he challenged me to get out and choreograph a story with dancers, to take charge of the entire process, and not simply record what's happening in front of me. And that, photographically, is exactly what "Dancers Among Us" is about. It's about a lot more than that, but that's a story for Jordan to tell.
So I contacted Jordan several months ago, after photographing a beautiful young dancer I know, Caitlin, at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. I sent it to Jordan and offered to help him with support and dancers if he ever came to Southern California. A few weeks ago he responded and accepted my offer of assistance. I spent a couple of days scouting locations and offered to bring two incredible dancers (Caitlin and Lauren) that I knew would be able to do the kinds of things Jordan would want. I can't show you any of their images because they may be used in the upcoming book, so they've been "embargoed". But I spent the first two days of this week supporting Jordan and the dozen or so dancers who volunteered for his tour of LA.
The image above shows how this thing goes. It's Jordan shooting Terry Beeman in front of a cheap hotel for those who can afford it along LA's Skid Row. Jordan asked me to stay just across the street with the engine running while he worked this scene with Terry. We had driven around the neighborhood while Jordan looked for specific locations and created a mental story to place this dancer in the scene. I shot behind the scenes images for him and suggested locations, perspectives, and other occasional things that a photographer "in the moment" might not otherwise see.
During my two days with Jordan, we hit about ten locations, working from noon to late at night, with eleven different dancers of all types. (We only got kicked out of four, which is pretty much par for the course.) He got some great frames. While at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, he was gracious enough to make a few of me.
This has been an incredible experience for me, and one that I'll cherish and use as an inspiration for my future dance projects. Jordan's a great guy. Look him up online now, and be on the lookout for the book when it's released this Fall.
Next up: three days of shooting Middle School theater and two days of high school dancers in National competition.
The Home Tour
This week I had the pleasure of providing photography services to the Canyon Chapter of the National Charity League as they presented their third annual Coto de Caza Home Tour. This is the Chapter's premier fundraising activity of the year, which raises something in the neighborhood of $30,000 to support the many philanthropies of the Chapter. The Tour features five remarkable homes in Coto, each one decorated and furnished in elegant fashion. This year was no exception.
The event begins with a morning breakfast at the Bell Tower Regional Community Center in Rancho Santa Margarita, where the guests are also able to browse and purchase various products from local vendors who support the Chapter and its activities. The guests then board shuttles for the brief trip into the gated community, where Chapter members lead guided tours of the five homes. The homes are, in a word, stunning.
One of the challenges of photographing architecture, especially interiors, is the need to shoot wide. Photographers who specialize in architectural work use "tilt-shift" or "perspective control" lenses to keep vertical lines vertical and horizontal lines horizontal. Shlubs like me, who don't have tilt-shift lenses make do with careful framing and cropping. Or, we let the lines go where they will, and we call it "art".
Another challenge in shooting interiors is balancing interior light and outdoor light. Our eyes do this effortlessly, but cameras can't handle the dynamic range presented by bright sunlight and darker interiors. There are three ways to deal with this extended dynamic range. First, you can lock the camera on a tripod and shoot multiple exposures designed to capture detail in the bright exterior and detail in the darker interior, and then blend them in post production. Or, you can bring enough studio light into the interior to balance the outdoor light, and get it in one shot. Or, you can decide not to worry about it, overexpose the room to make it nice and bright, tweak the color temperature in Photoshop and lead the viewer to conclude that the outside light is flooding the room. This, too, is "art".
Sometimes it's important to show that detail outside the window. But if you can't set up a tripod to capture multiple exposures, and all you have is one little speedlight, you can point it backwards, bang it off the wall behind you, and get something like this.
We call this luck "skill".
While all of these houses are remarkable in their design, decor, and landscaping, some of them have truly amazing features. This house has one room devoted completely to ballet, although the three girls who studied ballet have since married and moved on. As a dance photographer, I couldn't resist making a few studies of the details in this room.
Some of the "amenities" are just plain over the top. I say this with true admiration, because when I saw this "man cave", the entry to which is guarded by a genuine bank vault door, I had to chuckle.
But my jaw truly dropped when I went outside beyond the pool to see the two-story gymnasium, which almost defies description.
The gym was extremely dark and dramatic. The low light level called for an exposure in the half-second range, way too long to hand-hold the camera. So you make do with what you have, including door frames, railings, or a piece of gym equipment to steady the camera.
All of these interior images were made in very mixed lighting environments, including sunlight, tungsten lighting fixtures, and electronic flash. I continue to marvel at the classic Canon 5D's ability to handle these situations and make the final images work.
The Home Tour is a fun day for the guests, but it's a ton of work for those who prep the homes and staff the event. The Chapter members are a great group to spend the day with.
Getting My Butt Kicked
On Saturday, I had the opportunity to photograph another live broadcast of the KSBR's Gary and Kelly Show from the Norman P. Murray Center in Mission Viejo. This is a great community resource, with outstanding guest artists from the smooth jazz world. This week the broadcast featured guitarist Chris Standring, who treated the guests to a wonderful performance.
I usually get good results from these performances, because the stage is lit for television. The sides of the set are lit by hotlights, and the backdrop of the set is lit from behind through a curtain, which usually poses some challenges, but on this day, the background was much brighter than usual, and I couldn't get anything to work. It affected my exposure, my white balance, my focus, and maybe even my stock portfolio. I couldn't exactly stop the performance and hold my trusty light meter under Chris' chin, and I didn't want to completely blow out the background beyond recognition.
So what do you do when faced with a circumstance like this? There's a saying that goes something like, "You can't change the wind, but you can change your sails." First of all, you can change your own position to take the problem out of the frame. I moved to the far sides of the room, to isolate Chris from the difficult backdrop. I like this strategy, and use it all the time, even when the frontal view is working well. Shooting into the wings is the best way to isolate a stage-lit performer. Spot metering on the face will give you the proper exposure, and since the face is lit by these stage lights, the void in the background will almost always go black. Any remaining items in the frame can be left in for context or can be cloned out if they're too distracting. In the photograph above, taken from the left, I intentionally included the Chimera softbox with the egg-crate grid, which channels the light and reduces scatter. You can see its effect on Chris' face. The fact that Chris' black shirt and dark vest blend into the background shows what the egg-crate does. The light that doesn't hit Chris' face travels right behind him in a straight path, leaving the wings behind him unlit. The shadow side of Chris' face is lit by the stage lights, which would normally be the key lights.
For the next image, I moved to the right, and shot into the opposite wing. Chris was at center stage, lit by the overhead stage lights. The foliage behind Chris picked up some illumination from another Chimera light aimed at the interview set just out of frame to the right.
Finally, if you can't avoid the problem by moving your vantage point, and no amount of Photoshop can bring the right balance of color, contrast, and exposure to your image, the last option before hitting the Delete button is to go black and white, and pretend you intended to do this all along....
That's it for today.