Tuesday, September 1, 2009 Posted in Concert
I shot this incredible concert that brought together several music and dance groups that were influenced by the African Diaspora. There were four groups crammed into the one night and I almost wished that the concert could have gone on for much longer. There was just so much diversity and excitement.
The lighting for this show was pretty dark. Most of the time I was shooting at 4000 iso at f/2.8 with a shutter of around 1/100. To make matters worse, most of the lights were colored or gelled yellow! “White” light or a normal tungsten balanced spot was non-existent. Even a white balance of 2k in post still had a pronounced yellow cast. Argghh.
The first group performing was an Afro-Cuban group called Sandy Perez y su Lade. The dancer had this machete that he was furiously swinging about which of course makes for a great photo. I spent most of my time during this set concentrating on him.
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Wednesday, August 19, 2009 Posted in Event
Here are some photos from a recent shoot for a museum exhibit marketing manual. The exhibit was great and so were the kids who were the models for the shoot. I had originally planned on using a small Dynalite power pack and head with a shoot through umbrella which I would wheel around the exhibit. I was also shooting tethered to a laptop. That all lasted about a half hour before I had to give up on that idea in favor of mobility. It would just not have been possible to cover all the areas and the kids in the time I had available. It was time for dual camera bounced flash mode or simply available light as in the photo above.
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Tuesday, July 14, 2009 Posted in Concert
I’ve been a little lazy about posting lately I know. I’ve been wrapped up in a video project that still has a ways to go. I’ll post a small clip sometime in the future…
Anyway here are some shots by the group Aguacero, an Afro-Puerto Rican bomba music and dance group. I really enjoyed this show. There was a lot of movement, great rhythms and fantastic singing. This form is very improvisational. The dancers will move how the drum makes them feel and with their movements, call for accents or beats from the drummers. There’s this great interplay between the dancers and drummers that was really cool to watch. It makes me want to try learning this music but I already have too many neglected instruments as it is. There’s never enough time in the day is there?
This show had constantly changing light levels, often to an extreme degree, and dancers that would go in and out of spotlights in the matter of seconds. Many times there was no chance to adjust exposure so I just shot and figured on making some adjustments in post. Sometimes it really amazes me how much you can pull back the highlights of the D3 images and still have something usable.
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Tuesday, June 9, 2009 Posted in Concert
f/2.8, 1/80, 70-200mm at 200mm, iso 3200
Dohee Lee gave another great performance at her work in progress show “Deep Sea”. Sight lines at this venue were rather limited so I tried to isolate performers in the frame and relied heavily on the 70-200mm. I thought about adding on a 1.4 converter to get in even closer but the loss of a stop would have been too much. I was already shooting at iso 3200-4000 and could only get a max shutter speed of 1/125 sec.
More photos after the jump…
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Tuesday, June 2, 2009 Posted in Nature
f/2.8, 1/2500, 45mm PC-E, iso 200
I love Santa Cruz, the laid back vibe, the funky stores and restaurants, the musicians hanging out on the street corners…It’s a place I can go to just recharge. I could spend hours just watching the waves roll in while listening to the sounds and feeling the sand between my toes. I’ll never get tired of shooting beaches and sea shores, the tones of sand, water and sky, the open horizon. Yeah, this is the life.
f/2.8, 1/4000, 45mm PC-E, iso 200
f/2.8, 1/2500, 14-24mm at 14mm, iso 200
Tuesday, May 26, 2009 Posted in Concert
f/2, 1/6, 35mm, iso200
I spent the past weekend at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts working as part of the video crew for SYTE’s concert DVD production. I love shooting video but at the same time I often wish I could be shooting stills. I did manage to shoot some behind the scenes photos during my down time. It will give you a small glimpse of what happened before the show and a little taste of the excellent work by lighting designer Charles Griswold (though many of these shots were taken as lights were being set and were not the final lighting used in the show).
f/2.2, 1/6, 85mm, iso 200
More pics after the jump…
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by jasonlewphotography
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