The Hand That Moved

First post for the year! Well, first post in a while from me. And a rarity - a person photo - from my first gig coverage assignment. This image was caught at the Fusion of Music February concert in Windsor. Working in low light, without a tripod, with maximum zoom, I couldn't have made it harder for myself. But this picture came out serendipitously well as I realised that I had inadvertantly tracked the moving hand while the rest of the instrumentalist (who is playing a home-built electric cello) dissolved into the action of her enthusiastic performance.

Most of the shoot is in varying shades of magenta and teal depending on the stage lights, but I gave this one monochrome treatment to post here.

Devotees

Carrying on from my last post, I did take some shots of humans. What I learned was that a 28mm lens is just a touch too wide. To capture an image of these Hare Krishna devotees dancing and chanting with drums and cymbals, I asked permission before moving in close to take the shot. I had to crop the right part of the frame quite considerably to eliminate unwanted clutter and, even then, the subject seems to fall into the distance too quickly and not command the eye. I will have to get that 35mm prime I have been after and give one of them a go. As for other details, it was almost dark and pushing HP5+ to 1600 did cause the grittyness that I was after ... sort of. Maybe development in ID11 didn't quite hold the shadow detail as well as I wanted. This did get me thinking of another mini project to pursue, but more of that next time. (OM2n, Tamron 28mm f2.5, f8, HP5 @ 1600)

Yeoman of the Guard – Photographic Summary of Act 1 in 24 Images

From the Queensland Musical Theatre production of Gilbert & Sullivan’s “The Yeoman of the Guard” which ran from mid May to early June 2007 at the Schonell Theatre, University of Queensland. A wonderful performance of one of the more serious Gilbert & Sullivan operettas and a great viewing experience too!

Whilst I had originally intended to post perhaps at most two or three photographs, the number and chronological sequence of these images lend themselves so well to a photographic narrative, that I just had to present them all. Well not quite, it took me some time to decide on a style that would enable me to present a large number of images in a fairly compact manner. I think this 4 by 6 layout with a single key image in each works well, although I did have to drop one image, originally having 25 in total. Ilford HP5 pushed 3 stops to an ISO of 3200 has done quite a reasonable job of capturing the contrasty scenes.

The other aspect of this process that I have become less sure of is whether posting these images represent "fair use" or a copyright infringement. Are these photographs a sufficiently small quantum of the whole performance? Certainly I have acknowledged the source, I don't believe this post detracts in anyway from the integrity of the producers or participants, and my only real motive in publishing them is community interest. Still..

Trapeze

Circus theatre performed at the Judith Wright Centre for Contemporary Arts by graduates from the Circa Rock and Roll Circus Ensemble. A course where individuals not only learn artistic skills, but also discover more about their own inner strength and courage.

This image was rescued from a roll of Ilford HP5, inadvertently underexposed by 6 stops, which therefore required push processing to an ISO equivalence of 25600.