Theater Photography: Georgia O'Keeffe - A Woman on Paper

Well, after almost three months, my photo project documenting the world premier production, “Georgia O'Keeffe – A Woman on Paper,” has ended. I was able to photograph rehearsals and performances with unfettered access. The cast and crew were completely cooperative (I even got releases!) and made the job that much easier.

This was my first time photographing a theater production. The experience I had in photographing live music performances stood me in good stead. I used the same basic techniques for the theater as I did with music groups. The main goal is to get your exposures right. In the theater, that is a little more complicated as the actors may be walking in and out of the lighting schemes and the lighting may change from scene to scene. Not just the intensity, but the light temperature due to use of gels on the spots. And, of course, you can have different colored lighting in one scene.

My testing put me in the right range for all the performances. The cameras' ISO were set for 800 and my aperture ranges were from f2.8 – f4.0 ( down to f1.4 with my 50mm lens) with shutter speeds ranging from 1/50 – 1/160. The more I shot, the quicker I was able to adjust the lighting through the viewfinder on the fly. One tip I might emphasize is to know where your controls are on the camera so you can make those adjustments without taking your eye from the camera. The action on stage does not stop and you can miss that perfect gesture or expression each time you “chimp” or stop to look at the controls.

For both dress rehearsals and the premier performance I shot from the audience's perspective. During the first dress rehearsal, there was no audience. I was actually able to walk around with one camera on a tripod (using the Nikkor 70-200) and the other slung from my shoulder with the Black Rapid sling strap. For the second dress rehearsal, there was a small audience and although I could roam the theater I had to be careful not to block anyone's view. I ditched the tripod and carried both cameras – one in hand and one on the sling.

For the premier, I confined myself to the balcony, shooting from both wings. That worked rather well and gave another perspective to the images. The last performance was a matinee and was sold out. I spent my time during this performance shooting from the wings on either side of the stage. This let me get another perspective to the same scenes that I had already photographed. 

All told, between all the rehearsals and performances, I had more than 5,000 frames shot. Most of the processing was done in Adobe Lightroom 3.2 except the early B&W rehearsal shots which were done in Photoshop CS4 with the NIK Silver Efex plug-in. I don't know how many hours were spent in processing but they were considerable. I certainly gained some experience in organizing files for this large a project. And I can credit Lightroom's Library Module with making that organization go more smoothly.

One tip I can pass on has to do with adjusting shadows within the image. With this kind of photography you are concentrating on exposing for the highlights produced by those big spots that follow the actors around the stage. Your shadows are definitely going to be clipped. Given our experience with striving for a complete tonal range you may be tempted to bring out as much detail as you can in the shadows and ¾ tones. Don't. If you do (if you are shooting RAW files, you can get that detail) you are going to bring out a lot of noise. It is inevitable. There is no reason not to leave the blacks alone or just do the minimal necessary to get some detail. Lightroom's noise reduction is excellent but you can still lose some detail when you use it. Just like specular highlights can be acceptable in your images, so the black shadows are OK in this kind of photography. Each play will be lit differently. This one had some scenes where part of the stage and the actors or dancers in them were kept in relative darkness and to get those shots you have to remain flexible and adjust your ISO or get a faster lens. 

All in all this was a wonderful experience. I met a lot of really nice people (one of the great perqs of this business) and gained a lot of valuable experience. I got a lot better at handling my equipment and eyeballing exposure adjustments on the fly. And, while I was working in the wings and backstage, I got really good at keeping out of the way as actors streamed on and off the stage. Backstage, everything is on a really tight schedule. I quickly found nooks and crannies wherein I could hide while scenes changed. 

I am certainly waiting for my next theater project.