Inside Chez Paul

Those of you who were here a little earlier this week may remember out quick little visit to Chez Paul.  For those who don't, a good friend of mine put together a little fundraiser to help people dealing with Aphasia.  She put together a little theater show in the form of a cabaret. The fictional location for this was the Pub Chez Paul.  It was a musical show with lots of songs, both current and old, and I was given the fun job of photographing it all.  Unlike previous theater shows I've photographed, I wasn't able to show up for a dress rehearsal shoot where I could stand right in front of the stage and shoot away.  Instead, I was shooting from the crowd.  In the wings of the stands and also at the very back of the room at the very top of the seating area.  I'll admit, there were several times that I wished I could have just jumped in front of everyone in order to get a shot with some nice spotlight effects, but the limited shooting locations also offered me a different challenge.  Trying to get some nice shots, all while not being a distraction for those who were watching the show.  The lack of certain shots was made up for by the fact that afterwards I was told that I hadn't been noticed at all during the show.  I suppose I can take some of the credit by having limited my movements, but I think that also had a lot to do with the quality of the show that was taking place up on the stage.  While putting together a CD of photographs from the show, I decided to try making a few of them black and white.  I thought that doing so would add an old time pub feel to the images.  I was happy with the way that they turned out.  There are lots of photographs here to look at, so we might as well get started.  The first photograph was taken at f/5, 1/60sec, ISO 3200 at 135mm.  The second photograph was taken at f/2.8, 1/50sec, ISO 3200 at 70mm and the third photograph was taken at f/2.8, 1/500sec, ISO 3200 at 70mm.  Here are several more photographs that I took during the show.

f/3.5, 1/200sec, ISO 3200 at 70mm

f/4.5, 1/80sec, ISO 3200 at 200mm

f/4.5, 1/50sec, ISO 3200 at 115mm

f/5.6, 1/60sec, ISO 3200 at 135mm

f/5, 1/100sec, ISO 3200 at 27mm

f/2.8, 1/160sec, ISO 3200 at 62mm

f/2.8, 1/250sec, ISO 3200 at 43mm

f/3.5, 1/80sec, ISO 3200 at 40mm

f/2.8, 1/125sec, ISO 3200 at 180mm

f/4.5, 1/160sec, ISO 3200 at 140mm

 

f/4, 1/100sec, ISO 3200 at 142mm

 

I was juggling between two lenses over the course of the show.  Alternating between a 70-200mm telephoto lens for the shots from the back for the room and a 24-70 wide-angle lens when I was getting as close as I could.  Now I know why the pros usually shoot these shows with two camera bodies.  With the low light, I was also trying to time the movements of the dancers.  Watching the first part of the songs so I could time the breaks and then shooting when the chorus and dance moves would be repeated.  It was a great photographic exercise, and more importantly, it was great fun for a great cause.

One Week Away

We're only one week away!  The vernissage takes place next Thursday from 5:00PM to 8:00PM at the Greenfield Park Library, which can be found at 225 Empire, in Greenfield Park.  Head over to the Eric Mahannah Photography Facebook Page for more information. Make sure not to miss what will surely be the social event of the season! 😀

Smiling Snow Cone

Winter in my part of the World can be kind of deceptive.  Just when you think it's over, it has this habit of sneaking right back up and giving us a good smack.  Such was the case today.  A forecast of 15-30cm's of snow and high winds was in the middle of coming true this afternoon.  So, what did I do?  I decided to go out for a walk.  Truth be told, it wasn't a very long walk as I knew exactly where I wanted to go.  Just down the street from where I live, I had spotted a traffic cone that someone had spray painted a happy face on.  I had been trying to think of a fun way to photograph the thing, and what could be more needed during a blizzard than a happy face.  I shot the photograph at f/4, 1/2500sec, ISO 400 art 24mm.  I needed to use a high speed in order to catch some of the falling snow, and as you can see, there was quite a lot to be seen.

A Glimpse Of Chez Paul

I've spent the last little while pretty much focused on my photography exhibition, but when one receives an offer that they can't refuse, some scheduled things end up getting thrown out the window.  Such was the case this past week when my friend Jasmine asked me if I would be interested in photographing a benefit show she had produced to help raise money for research into aphasia.  It's a disease that is very personal to her as it has struck her father.  This year, she has put together a full cabaret style theater show and it was terrific entertainment.  I wasn't exactly sure what I would be shooting when I accepted to lend a hand, and ended up being a little bit nervous when the full scope of the show was explained to me, but sometimes it's best to jump into the deep end if you want to learn how to swim.  However, I now find myself drowning in photographs as my trigger happy shooting method has left me with a incredibly large amount of photographs to sift through.  At least editing all of these photographs will keep me out of trouble for the near future.  I prepared two rather quickly so I could send them off to Jasmine so she could see I was doing some work, and I figured I'd share them with all of you out there as well.  The first photograph was taken at f/2.8, 1/40sec, ISO 3200 at 70mm and the second photograph was taken at  f/3.5, 1/100sec, ISO 3200 at 110mm.  I'll post a few more up here when I finish everything up.

Dust In The Wind

We're getting near the end of the 2016 watermarked photographs.  This little batch was created during a dull afternoon when I tried to save a photograph that I had taken. I had made the mistake of heading out to shoot some photographs of the Jacques Cartier Bridge without cleaning my camera first.  The result was a bunch of photographs that were covered with dust spots.  Frustrated, I decided to play around in Photoshop, trying to see if I could save the images and maybe create something with them.  I figured that it's a good time to finally put these photographs up on the blog since the bridge is currently going through a bit of a make-over as lights are being installed on the outside of the structure.  You can see many of the dust spots in the first photograph that is presented at the top of the page. I had begun to try and get rid of them using the Clone Stamp too in Photoshop, but there was just so many of them, and in many inopportune places.  So, I began to play around with several of the different textures and filters that the program offers.  The end result was the second photograph that you see on the page.  It kind of ended up looking like a painting.  That's a good thing since I would never be able to draw or actually paint that thing myself.  The third image looks a little bit more like a photograph than the second one.  I managed to get rid of the dust spots from that one by using the Curves tool and also also playing around with the colours.  I ended up losing some of the sky in the upper left-hand corner, but preserved lots of the red of the setting sun while still keeping some of the blue on the top right.  All three of these images came from the same original photograph, which was taken at f/7.1, 1/60sec, ISO 100 at 40mm.  I'm still ages away from being proficient with all of the options that Photoshop has to offer, but it's nice to be able to do a little bit of tweaking here and there in order to save a photograph and make something out of what I had previously considered to be a lost cause.

Gaspé In The Morning

While things may be progressing ahead of schedule when it has to do with my photography exhibition, I am still dreadfully behind schedule when it comes to clearing out the hard drive.  Since I have not been doing much shooting over the last little while due to getting things ready for the show, this is the opportune time to pull some older photos out.  Such is the case with this series.  Those of you with sharp eyes may notice that they have been watermarked 2016 as I had planned to posting these last year, but time ended up getting in the way.  These photographs were taken a couple of years ago when My Lovely Assistant and I spent a week in Gaspé for our summer vacation.  I wanted to visit the Percé Rock, a very well known local landmark that draws thousands of toursist every year, present company included.  I wanted to get some photographs of the sun coming up next to the rock, so I woke up early one morning, headed down to the beach and began shooting.  Upon returning to the hotel, I was spotted by the manager who let me know that in early August, the sun rises right through the hole in the rock.  Maybe we will have to return to see that one day.  The first photograph was taken at f/16, 1/60sec, ISO 100 at 24mm and the second photograph was taken at f/16, 1/50sec, ISO 100 at 24mm.  Here are some photographs from the rest of the sunrise.

f/16, 1/30sec, ISO 100 at 24mm

f/16, 1/60sec, ISO 100 at 24mm

f/16, 1/20sec, ISO 100 at 24mm

f/16, 1/50sec, ISO 100 at 24mm

At first, I was a little worried about the line of clouds that were hanging around over the rock, but as the sun rose, it made a nice demarcation line of blue sky above, and orange sky below.  The reflection of the sun in the ripples of the water was also something that caught my eye.  Then it was quickly back to bed.  After all, what the heck was I doing awake so early in the morning...I was on vacation for crying out loud!

Everyone Is Invited

Time is doing that old trick of going by really fast.  In the blink of an eye, it's already the 1st of March.  That means that in another blink of an eye it will be March 23rd and my photography exhibition will be taking place.  I was given a little invitation slip that I could give to people, to invite them to my vernissage and the exhibition.  This being the digital age, I figured I'd extend the invitation to all of you out there.  I understand that some of you reading this may be a great distance away, but should you be within a short distance of the Greenfield Park Library from March 23rd to April 23rd, feel free to drop in and take a look at my photographs.  Same goes for the vernissage which will take place the evening of March 23rd.  I hope to see some of you there.