Facade - Part Two

They say that time flies when you're having fun.  I find that generally time flies no matter what is happening.  Last year while taking photographs for the Choeur Vives Voix (feel free to look at those photographs right here and right here), I ended up putting a pretty large period of time between my first and second parts.  I swore that I wouldn't do that again.  In a way, I was right.  Last year I had the second part up my May 3rd....it's presently May 7th.  What can I say, sometimes life gets in the way.  If you don't remember those photographs from Part One, you can see them right here.  When last we spoke, the curtain had just fallen on Act I and I was in the process of switching memory cards so that I wouldn't go through the same agonizing headaches of last year.  As the curtain rose, I was once again ready to go. What you see here are a selection of shots from the second part of the show.  A couple of my favourite shots from the entire play are here in Part 2.  Beginning with the second photograph.  I had been trying to find an angle where the stage lights would be coming down perfectly on the actress you see in the background.  After getting a couple of photographs, I pulled my camera away and noticed that her image was in the small screen of the video recorder that was being used as a prop.  I immediately focused on her image and took the picture, which resulted in the actress being out of focus in the background, but in focus on the screen.  I think I've seen shots similar to that on television before and I was really happy to have been able to grab this one.  Another personal favourite is the fourth photograph on this page.  The actress was 'talking' to voices in the door.  I really wanted to get the shot of her looking at the door, but us seeing her reflection in the window.  As an added bonus, the actresses behind the door can be seen as well.  To get this shot, I focused on the door and tried to take the shot while the stage lights were at their brightest.  Those are my two favourites, though that's not to say that I don't like the others as well.  The first photograph of this set happened near the end of the show and I liked how most of the main characters were in the shot.  The facial expressions were really fun as well.  The third photograph was also difficult to grab.  This was a little dance number and people were moving all over the place.  As I already mentioned, the stage lights were not very bright so I was dealing with shot shutter speeds, making it not always very easy to capture people while they move.  I had seen the play a few times before shooting, so I knew there would be little pauses in the dance routine, so I tried to make sure I'd be ready to shoot at the times when the dancers were not moving as much.  The fifth photograph took place while the actress on the left was singing a solo.  I focused on her and let my large aperture take care of blurring out everyone in the background.  You can see that her right hand is a little bit blurred.  A victim of that low lighting I was talking about.  Luckily, I managed to freeze the rest of her to create what I feel is a great shot, and a great shot to end this update on.  The first photograph was taken at f/2.8, 1/40sec, ISO 1600 at 40mm.  The second photograph was taken at f/2.8, 1/30sec, ISO 1600 at 68mm.  Photograph number three was taken at f/2.8, 1/160sec, ISO 1600 at 27mm.  The fourth photograph was taken at f/2.8, 1/25sec, ISO 3200 at 67mm and the fifth photograph was taken at f/2.8, 1/50sec, ISO 3200 at 43mm.  A huge thank-you to everyone at the Choeur Vives Voix.  I had a blast and I hope that we can do it again next year.