Categories: all aviation Building a Biplane bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater

Wed, 12 Oct 2011

God I Love My Job

Last night, at the theater, one of my jobs was to take bio pictures of the cast. We make a series of video slides, which are projected on a wall, with one for each cast member. They get a photo and whatever text they come up with as their bio.

With some of the cast members, I ended up taking a dozen or more pictures, trying to get the right look. With some, it was just one or two shots, and we had the perfect thing. Usually, we'd take a string, and on the last one, have a shared, "Oh yeah, that's the one!" moment.

I just can't get one of them out of my mind. This is Melinda Parks, who's playing Courtney Love in c.1993 (you never step in the same river twice). We took a ton of pictures looking for the right thing, then I dropped the umbrella down to knee height, she made this face, and it all came together in a moment of blinding awesomeness:

For the photo nerds in the house, this was taken with a Canon 7D, a Canon 50mm f/1.4 lens, and two strobes -- one as front-light into a silver umbrella, and the other with a dark blue gel as hair/shoulder light. The picture was desaturated in Photoshop, and levels adjusted slightly. The red highlight on the hair is the dim incandescent overhead light.

I'm stunned at how this picture turned out. I'm eternally thankful for the photographic opportunities I'm handed as part of my work with Annex.

Posted at 22:44 permanent link category: /theater


Categories: all aviation Building a Biplane bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater