photo laureates provides here some pieces of information on theater photography.

What's it about?

In the past two years, I've been able to combine two things I feel very passionate about: live theatre and photography. I've done this by doing production photography for the drama program at the school my children attend.  

I was asked to take photographs. After a bit of hunting around for what really was needed, I've settled into doing what is called 'production photos' - photographs which show various moments during a performance of the play. Typically, these photographs are used in the theatre lobby, as publicity photos, etc.

As of the end of June, 1999, I've photographed perhaps a dozen plays. Along the way, I've learned quite a few lessons the hard, painful way.

What follows is a brain-dump of what I've managed to learn, categorized thus:

• Preparation
• Procedure and Goals
• Film
• Printing
• Equipment
• Composition
• Things to watch for 

Preparation-

Take the time to get to know the director, stage manager, choreographer, and lighting director. You'll need their help and they need to be confident you're not going to do something annoying, stupid, or dangerous. When in doubt about whether you're doing something that annoys them, ask. It probably isn't but it fixes in their minds that you want to be accommodating, which means that they probably won't kill you outright when you make some mistake and actually do something annoying and stupid.

At first, I went to early rehearsals trying to get a feel for how the play went and to put together a shot list. This was hopelessly optimistic and runs smack into a fundamental premise of the theater, which is that generally the show is still being changed right up to the instant of the performance (and sometimes during it).

It is a big help to know the general lines of the play, who the main characters are, and what are the high energy moments of the performance. If it's possible to see a complete run-through of the play before you shoot, it's certainly worth it. On the other hand, it's perfectly possible to get good photographs going in cold, if you know generally what you're looking for.

Break all the film out of boxes and cans, so that you have only to reach into a pocket and take out a roll of film. Have one bag for unexposed film, another for exposed film. As you break the film out of boxes and cans, discard the boxes and put the cans away in a separate place to be recycled. You don't want to have to wade through boatloads of litter and empty cans later on ¨C it just increases the probability that you'll lose some exposed film (which is arguably the most valuable substance known to mankind).

Before the rehearsal begins, establish with the director and stage crew where you can go and where you can't. Take the time to clear all the clutter out of the area where you will be moving around while photographing. During the rehearsal, of course, it will be dark so it's essential to clear the clutter or you'll surely trip over it.

Take spare batteries for everything that runs on batteries. I have had a camera meter battery go dead in the middle of a rehearsal, and the only thing that kept it from being totally irritating was that I had a spare in the bag.

Wear soft-soled shoes that don't squeak. Dark clothing is a help.

I generally take something cold to drink, and guzzle it down during intermission. I have a shoulder that bothers me on occasion and I've found that holding a camera up in front of my face for 2.5 hours non-stop can irritate it badly. Now I generally take some ibuprofen before I start shooting, and this seems to keep the pain down to a dull ache at worst. Remember that once a dress rehearsal starts, it generally doesn't stop, so it's worth hitting the bathroom before the start.

Intermission (if there is one) is likely to be brief. Remember that intermission is a good time to check the film in each body and reload those bodies that are near the end of the roll. It's far better to reload during an intermission or during some stop in the rehearsal than to reload on the fly, even if this means wasting part of a roll of film.

Find out from the director/stage crew if you can get on the stage during the rehearsal. If it's possible to be on the stage, it's worth exploring. The director may not be willing to allow this, so remember to ask first. The big advantage to working from the same surface the performance is on is that you'll be on the same level as the performers, and you'll be able to move in quite closely. If you do move in closely, pay close attention to which performers react to your presence and which do not. Some performers can continue without a hitch when you and your camera are very close. Others cannot, will get flustered, lose their place, forget their lines, and generally mess up. Remember that your goal is to make the best possible photographs of the best possible performance. Getting in the way is not the path to that goal. Also, be aware of what's happening around you. Being in the middle of the set during a scenery change is a perfect formula for disaster.

Procedure and goals-

I generally expose film during the final dress/tech rehearsal. I then process the film that night, immediately after I expose it, and then contact print the negatives first thing the next morning. I have the contact print process worked out, so I expose all the contact prints, stuffing the exposed paper into a paper safe, and then I gang-process the contact prints in a tray line, four prints at a time. Using this streamlined process, contact printing goes quickly, and the RC paper is washed and dried in a matter of minutes. I then edit down to the final images using the contact prints and the negatives on a light box, and then I go right ahead and print the final 11x14 images, often in one longish darkroom session. The schedule goal is to have the display prints ready to hand over two days after the shoot at the latest, so that they can be displayed in the lobby area during the public performances of the play.

In general my goal is to end up with 12-14 good images printed full frame on 11x14 paper. I've found that 8x10 prints are simply too small to have any impact in a crowded place, and add to the crowding since people tend to move in close to look at them. Despite the goal being 12-14 prints, I'm finding that I tend to end up with more like 16-18 prints.

To get fast turnaround, I keep the printing pretty simple. Most of the prints are either straight prints or are very nearly so. Because of the need for fast turnaround, there's just no time for working out (or executing) long, complicated printing sequences. RC paper is a must simply because it dries so damn fast. An RC print dryer would be a help but a hair dryer works in a pinch. A dry to dry print processor like a Durst Printo or equivalent would be a Godsend.

My editing process is very simple ¨C I take each contact sheet in turn, and simply make a list of the good looking shots on a Post-It note, which gets affixed to the contact sheet. After I've run through all the contact sheets, I make a second pass through them. On the second pass, I've seen everything once, have a general idea of what's available, and thus I'm considerably more ruthless about cutting images. Again, I cut images by crossing them off the Post-It. On the second pass, I usually end up with about three to four times as many images as I need to print. Many of them are variations of each other, either done with different focal lengths, done from different angles, etc. This is not a problem, and I don't try to select between the good variations just yet.

The next editing step is to sort the images into categories ¨C I do this by making one Post-It per category. My categories are generally along the lines of "Character A gets angry with Character B" or something similar. Then I go through each category, and pick the one image that I think is best. If you have more than two images in one category, it goes much faster if you review the images, and then make choices by picking two choices and comparing, pick the winner, and then continue, comparing only two images at a time. Often during the review of the choices, one image will be the clear standout, and you can just pick that one and move on to the next category.

It's well worth viewing each candidate negative on a light box with a good loupe, to avoid picking images that are little soft or have some other defect when you have another acceptable candidate without that defect.

Once I have it winnowed down to one good image in each category, I then start sorting the images down into winners and also-rans. The simplest method is to go through the candidate categories/images, and pick those that are clear standout winner images and place them in the winner pile. I then go through the remaining candidates, and either sort them into the also-ran pile or into the winner pile. I usually spread the Post-It's for the winners spread out on the table, which makes it easy to keep track of how many images you've selected and also makes it easy to make sure the images are sufficiently diverse, represent the narrative thread of the play, highlight the important points of the play (without being spoilers), show off the entire cast, etc.

Film-

I've found that the lighting is tremendously variable, ranging from excellent to hopeless for photo laureates purposes. Remember that lighting that is very successful from a dramatic point of view can be problematic from a photo laureates one. Sometimes the difficulty with lighting is that it's very localized, leading to very high scene contrast. More often, it's a matter of just not having enough light to get the high shutter speeds you want at the apertures you'd like to have.

The basic solution to the latter problem is high-speed film. Since I'm basically a black & white photographer, I find there are basically two suitable films: Kodak Tmax-3200P (aka TMZ) and Ilford Delta 3200.

I shoot TMZ at EI 800, developed in XTOL 1+1 in a Jobo rotary processor. I find that generally it's a bad idea to push process the film to get more film speed. The scenes are already contrasty, and pushing the film increases the contrast, and just makes it harder to get decent looking prints. Push processing also increases grain, something I'd prefer to avoid. I've also tried TMZ in D-76 1+1, and in Tmax and Tmax-RS developers. XTOL produces results that I find to be substantially better than any of those combinations.

Recently I've tried Delta 3200, also processed in XTOL 1+1 in a Jobo. Delta 3200 is about 1/3 to ? stop faster than TMZ. It also has a longer toe, and has a shoulder (TMZ seems to be linear far past the point where you'd ever actually expose it). The toe and shoulder present real problems for theater photography, because you're typically confronted with a scene where important detail is in shadow, but the foreground characters are quite brightly lit. In this case, you have little choice but to expose for the shadow detail, and let the brightly lit foreground fall way up on the film curve. If the curve is straight, this isn't a problem. With Delta 3200, you need to keep the shadow detail pretty far up on the film curve, because otherwise you don't get enough shadow contrast. But when you increase exposure, you move that foreground character up onto the shoulder, and lose contrast there. In my trials of Delta 3200 I had considerable difficulty with detail in brightly lit white objects being completely blown out.

Generally, I seem to expose about three or four rolls of 36 exposures per hour of performance, so that for a typical performance I end up with eight to ten rolls of exposed film. When I first started I exposed substantially more film, often up to 12-14 rolls per performance. As I've gotten better the amount of film has slowly fallen and the results have slowly improved. I make it a point to take twice as much film to the rehearsal as I think I will expose.

Another good plan is to have another photographer help you expose film. I have two friends who have helped me out this way, and it's more of an assistance than you can imagine. The biggest advantage is that two (or three) people can cover more angles than one person, which helps when you get caught in the wrong place. The second biggest advantage is that with two people, one can be shooting while the other reloads a body. There's nothing like hearing the shutter of another photographer's camera while you're reloading to help you relax. My thirteen year old daughter is now my default backup photographer.

Printing-

I print everything on Kodak PolyMax II RC. At first, I used the N finish, which is very much like the old Kodak N surface for fiber base paper. It's not glossy and displays well under unfavorable lighting. The shadow contrast of this paper is not particularly high, and that combined with the longish toe of TMZ tends to blot out subtle shadow detail. You just have to live with it. Printing everything a bit light helps a lot, and is probably a good idea since the prints are likely to be displayed under mediocre lighting.

More recently, I've switched to the E (Lustre) finish, which has the advantage that the blacks are a bit deeper than the semi-matte N finish, but still is not so glossy that the reflections are distracting when the prints are displayed in a busy, crowded place with not-too-great lighting.

All of the prints are processed in a tray line consisting of PolyMax-T developer, acetic acid stop bath, rapid fixer, and a water wash. After processing, the prints are dried face up on nylon screens. I try to control dust spots while printing but sometimes spot the prints if a print is a problem.

Equipment-

I started out using a Leica M6 body with 35mm f/2 ASPH Summicron, 50mm f/2 Summicron, and 90mm f/2 Summicron lenses. Since then I've acquired another M6 body and two more lenses ¨C a 50mm f/1.0 Noctilux and a 75mm f/1.4 Summilux.

All photos are taken using the existing stage lighting. Using a strobe disturbs the performers and obliterates the design of the stage lighting. Sometimes I've wanted to set up several small strobes to fill the background, but I've never tried it.

The Leica M6 is nearly ideal for this sort of work. The cameras are small, quiet, and unobtrusive, which means that you can get in close without intimidating the performers. I lose very few shots due to performers changing eye line to look at the camera. A motor drive is not needed, but motorized rewind would be a big help (or maybe several bodies and an assistant to reload). Focusing a rangefinder in low light is difficult but better than focusing an SLR under the same light. Some scenes are so softly lighted that autofocus would be hopeless. Beware of cameras that use a small intense light to throw an autofocus assist pattern ¨C they are very distracting to the performers. My daughter has solved this problem by covering the assist light on her camera with gaffer's tape during the shoot.

Although at first I felt that faster lenses would not help because of problems with the shallow depth of field, I find in practice the faster lenses are a big win. My opinion has changed primarily because very shallow depth of field can be used to isolate one performer, or to draw attention to one aspect of the image but render the background unrecognizable. A certain familiarity with the depth of field that different lenses give at different f-stops is a big help. Shooting wide open also gives you a faster shutter speed, which can be an advantage.

Although I get good results relying on the relatively primitive in-camera meter of the M6, I find that using a spot meter can be a big help. At first I used a Zone VI modified Pentax Digital spotmeter, which works very well. Since then, I've started using a Sekonic L-508 combination spotmeter and incident meter. The incident feature is very useful for exploring the stage lighting, especially if you show up in advance and can persuade the stage crew run through the lighting cue by cue. Generally I use the spot meter only to check when I find a lighting situation that I suspect is beyond the capability of the in-camera meter and I have plenty of time. When in doubt, over-expose.

My daughter is now helping with the photography - for the last play (Greater Tuna) five of the sixteen delivered images were hers (she's embarrassingly good!). She uses an Canon EOS Elan and a Canon 50mm f/1.4 EF lens. This is also an excellent camera for this work - small, relatively unobtrusive, and quiet with a good fast lens. I now greatly regret getting rid of the 85mm f/1.8 USM, which she could no doubt use to good advantage. The 50mm f/1.4, by the way, is an excellent lens. Warning: while the Elan is an excellent camera for this purpose, it does use an autofocus assist light. It should either be disabled using the appropriate custom function setting, or else you should cover the light with gaffer's tape or the equivalent.

Some of the time, it's impossible to avoid shooting where some of the lighting is hitting your lens. Use lens hoods, the bigger the better. Make sure everything is scrupulously clean before shooting starts and every use opportunity to clean it again. (Carry a microfiber lens cloth all the time).

I find it very helpful to wear a vest while shooting. I keep lenses in the large baggy pockets; each lens has its own private pocket to prevent them banging against each other. The vest offers lots of pockets, which means you can also stuff the spot meter in one, film in another, exposed film in yet another, etc. I generally take off lens caps and base caps and do without them while shooting. They just get in the way, get dropped and impossible to find in the dark, etc. The lenses are pretty safe in the pocket.

It helps to be metering whenever you aren't exposing film, and constantly adjusting the camera to match the metering. This will help catch lighting changes. Note that every time you move, the lighting will change because different amounts of the scene will fall into shadow (if the lighting is directional). If you use a manual focus camera, it's a good idea to refocus as the scene changes, so that you're ready to make an exposure all the time, without taking time to fiddle around.

Another issue with exposure is more a matter of expectation. Often there's no shadow detail at all. It's just not there. It's not a matter of exposing for the shadows, because they're going to be blank no matter what you do. Spot metering the shadows and faces, I often got seven or eight stops of difference. The trick is to expose for skin tones, hope that black clothing will show a little detail, and let it go. When in doubt, pick the longer shutter time or wider aperture. A frame with narrow depth of field or slightly motion blurred can be printed, but one without any exposure is a goner.

photo laureates suggests that you always have easy access to all your lenses.

Composition-

Wide angle, inclusive shots are very hard. The lighting is uneven, there's lots of difficulty with background that distracts, and depth of field is a real problem. You need to know they're coming and be set in advance. Part of the difficulty is that the tension and energy between characters is what makes a good theatre photo, and it's awfully hard to portray that energy when it's spread all across the stage.

The most successful shots are the ones that capture peak moments of interaction between performers ¨C moments when they touch, when they incline their heads towards each other, when their eyes meet.

Without those visual cues of what's going on, the picture will be lifeless. Eye contact is a nearly 100% winner. If there is more than one performer on stage, contrive to line them up so that one falls in the background of the other; the depth works better than having them side by side. A tableau is easier to catch than a fleeting glance but much less effective as a photograph. If you photograph a musical be wary of singing people, who usually have their mouths open in an unflattering and unnatural way.

Pay attention to the background and position yourself so that you are lining things up against the good part of the set. Watch for clutter around the performers' heads. There's a fine line between having enough detail to keep the background from being boring and having it be too cluttered. Often the very back of the stage will consist of a cyclorama ('cyc' in theater parlance) or scrim upon which various things are projected (or the color and brightness of which is controlled by lighting). Simple images are projected on a cyclorama by fitting an opaque mask (a 'gobo') into a light, which then shines on the cyclorama to show the image. Such images often make wonderful backgrounds for photographs, so it's worth noting when they're used and contriving to use it to full advantage. In general it's better to have *something* in the background of the photo, so it's worth getting into the habit of looking for any lighting projected onto the cyc and then looking for ways to exploit it.

A shot of an isolated performer will work only if the posture and lighting are suggestive of the character's frame of mind. Hand gestures are a big help here. In my experience images of isolated performers are almost always losers unless you capture a very dramatic moment with an evocative gesture or facial expression. It can be hard to resist the temptation to make exposures but it's almost certainly a waste of film. A better use of time would be to reload a body that was running low on film.

Tight head and shoulders framing can help, but the shallow depth of field can be a problem. Focusing on the eyes is a must. The shallow depth of field can be used to advantage by focusing on the key performer but lining up the right angle to get the other performer in the background in the right place but clearly out of focus (but still recognizable). Some lenses have more cohesive out of focus rendering and that's a big help with this. Often it works well to have the performer(s) that's out of focus be in front of the focus plane. Be aware that the depth of field is deeper behind the plane of focus than in front by a factor of two.

When working with shallow depth of field, it seems that there are some general rules that help. Things out of focus in front of the plane of sharp focus can be very distracting; far more distracting, for instance, than an out of focus background. When using very fast lenses (f/1.4 and faster) wide open, the depth of field will be non-existent. In that case, I follow a simple rule - focus on the eyes. Generally a performer's face will be the point of highest interest in the print, and people seem to interpret an image where they can see the eyelashes crisply as 'in focus' even if the rest of the image is soft.

Generally tightly composed images work out better than more loosely composed ones. Move in close, then move in closer.

The most favorable angle may involve being up in the air. Standing on a chair helps. Beware of shooting too far from shoulder level. Shooting from above tends to make the photos look more like photos of a play rather than like the images drawn from reality, and thus (to my eye) are less effective. Shooting from below will result in ¡®Nostril Shots'. If you have the bad fortune to be working in a theatre with a pit area that is well below the level of the stage, and you cannot be up on the stage with the performers you're got a real problem, because the only way to get above the level of the performers' waists is to move well back into the seating where the pitch of the floor will lift you up.

About the only solution I can see is fast, long focal length lenses and a monopod. If you are on very good terms with the director and stage crew, you might consider having them lay risers in the pit to lift you up and give you room to work.

Don't forget to look for pictures of the director, choreographer, stage manager, lighting director, stage crew, light crew, musicians, musical director et al.

Things to watch for:

• Hats. Hats cast shadows. Big, nasty shadows. Talk to the costume designer and the performers and convince them to wear the hat far back on their head. Black hats are really bad. Black hats with really wide brims are really, really, really bad. Actors/actresses should not be allowed to wear big, black hats with really wide brims. Your best bet is to work to build a relationship with the costume designer and try to work around issues like this. Building a relationship with the lighting designer can help, too.
• Profiles. Strongly directional lighting makes surface texture very apparent in skin. Beware. Likewise, the strongly directional lighting often casts the meridian of shadow across a face in an unpleasant way. The best approach to avoiding this is to try to shoot slightly off the axis of lighting. Too close to the lighting axis, and things go flat. Too far off the axis and there are large unpleasant shadows. In the middle is a narrow region of contentment.
• Dark clothing. It messes up meter readings. It's terrible to print because it's so hard to get detail in anything dark.
• White clothing. See dark clothing, above.