The Art lessons

The play has a cast of three, who are on stage most of the time, with a lot of motion. The White Barn stage is a small raised platform against a black curtained wall with wood pillars.

35mm,  1/200 sec, f/6.3,  Mode: Av,  Metering: Multi-segment,  Exp comp: -1 1/3,  ISO: 1600.

The curtains allowed me to shoot from almost anywhere in the house and get the actors in sharp contrast to the background.

70mm,  1/160 sec, f/4.5,  Mode: Av,  Metering: Multi-segment,  Exp comp: -1 1/3,  ISO: 1600.

Such a consistent background made it easy to line up the performers in shots to capture relationships. In the next two shots I changed the focal point to emphasize each actor in turn. First focusing on the actor in the foreground using a single spot focus point.

70mm,  1/160 sec, f/5.6,  Mode: Av,  Metering: Multi-segment,  Exp comp: -2,  ISO: 2000.  

Then focusing on the actor in the back by moving the focus point.

70mm,  1/160 sec, f/5.6,  Mode: Av,  Metering: Multi-segment,  Exp comp: -2,  ISO: 2000.

 I expanded the depth of field for shots where I wanted both actors in sharper focus.

70mm,  1/200 sec, f/6.3,  Mode: Av,  Metering: Multi-segment,  Exp comp: -1 1/3,  ISO: 1250.

The stage in NVC’s black box presented different challenges.

The audience in this space surrounds the stage on three sides. When shooting across the stage to the audience, I had to underexpose to make the seats disappear, as in this shot. The lighting designer had  kept the stage lighting from splashing onto the seating.

34mm,  1/160 sec, f/6.3,  Mode: Av,  Metering: Multi-segment,  Exp comp: -3,  ISO: 1600.

In this shot, the only evidence of the seating are the dim white seat upholstery tags hanging down under the seats. (I wanted to tear them off, but it’s a Federal offense!)

Shooting against the dark seating, then the light-colored wall background required frequent exposure compensation changes. Here the background is dark, requiring -2 2/3 stops underexposure when using the multi-segment metering mode.

52mm,  1/200 sec, f/4,  Mode: Av,  Metering: Multi-segment,  Exp comp: -2 2/3,  ISO: 1600.

Just a few shots later I had to boost the exposure a full stop to -1 2/3 to maintain a record enough light on the actors.

70mm,  1/500 sec, f/5,  Mode: Av,  Metering: Multi-segment,  Exp comp: -1 2/3,  ISO: 1600.

Shooting against different backgrounds led to a number of over- and underexposed images, which got tossed into the memory wastebasket.

Here endeth the Art lessons.