Thriller Night

This past weekend saw the annual Festival Classica in Saint-Lambert.  A weekend full of art and Classical Music.  My favourite part of the weekend is usually the Classica Rocks, free outdoor concert.  It usually involves an orchestra and large choir doing classical versions of rock songs.  In the past, the works of Pink Floyd, Beau Dommage and last year, the songs of Queen.  This year, Classica Rock decided to do versions of songs by Michael Jackson.  I almost didn't make it to the show.  There were big rain storms scheduled for that evening, but the skies didn't really open until about twenty minutes before the show.  I thought that my plans for the evening were finished.  The couch was rather comfortable and the Chicago Blackhawks were facing off against the Anaheim Ducks in Game Seven of a rather good series.  But, then the rain came to an end.  About 40 minutes after the show had begun, the sky finally cleared and the rain came to an end.  At the same time, the Blackhawks had jumped out to a rather large 4-0 lead, so I figured, why not head out and see the end of the show.  I managed to make it in time for the big three songs, Billie Jean, Beat It and Thriller, and I even got an encore of Beat It as the guitarist had broken one of his strings during the solo and was happy to get a chance to play the song again.  Photography wise, I once again found myself rather far back in the crowd.  The rain had kept others away, but not enough for me to get very close.  I was thinking that would happen, so I had armed myself with a nice telephoto lens and I also brought a monopod with me.  I tried to capture some shots where the conductor had his arms stretched out as I felt they made for more interesting shots.  I was also trying to a good balance between an aperture small enough to keep much of the photograph in focus, but at the same time using a shutter speed fast enough to freeze the conductor in action while dealing with low light conditions.  Oh yeah, I was trying to listen to the music as well.  There were a couple of fun moments I tried to capture as well.  At one point, the conductor put on the sequined Michael Jackson styled glove, as well as the famous red thriller jacket.  They even brought up a couple of local dance instructors to try and teach the crowd how to do the Thriller dance before the song played.  All in all, it was a fun little outing.  The first photograph was taken at f/7.1, 1/50sec, ISO 3200 at 170mm.  The second photograph was taken at f/6.3, 1/50sec, ISO 3200 at 200mm.  The third photograph was taken at f/6.3, 1/125sec, ISO 3200 at 160mm and the fourth photograph was taken at f/8, 1/25sec, ISO 3200 at 168mm.  Here are a couple more photographs I took during the show.

f/7.1, 1/50sec, ISO 3200 at 70mm

f/9, 1/30sec, ISO 3200 at 140mm

f/4.5, 1/320sec, ISO 3200 at 70mm

f/6.3, 1/100sec, ISO 3200 at 168mm

I like the fifth photograph in this series.  The guy had just jumped up on the shoulders of one of his friends and you can see caught the attention of one of the musicians in the choir.  I also really like the eighth shot with all of the lights coming down.  It was a good show, I'm happy that I managed to get out and see it.