Photographing the arts: embracing uncertainty

“When I look back at how I got to where I am now, the one through-line that carries on is always theatre. For me, that’s been the great love/obsession of my working life, and so everything I’ve done—since high school, basically—has been about finding my place in that community.”

A couple of years ago, I was interviewed by the wonderful performer Jennifer Trijo (who I met working on Once, and is currently in Hadestown) for her blog about careers in the arts which is, sadly, no longer online. I always intended to republish it here at some stage, as I thought we had a really great conversation about building a career in the performing arts.

So, with her permission, here’s the article she wrote at the time…

Photographing the arts: Different Spaces—wide angles for close quarters

In a previous essay I was talking about the difficulty of going into unfamiliar venues, and working out how to know what lenses might be needed to reach a performer on stage over a great distance. This time, I wanted to look at the opposite issue—how to work with a large production, in a small space.

When there isn’t going to be room to back up very far—if the seating in the venue is right at the front edge of the stage, for example—an ultra-wide angle lens is what’s going to be needed to get the full scale of a very wide or tall set, which can be useful for both publicity/marketing of the production (especially if it’s a particularly ambitious show in terms of scale), and later on for designers’ portfolios as well.

But that can create other issues, even as it’s solving one problem…

Photographing the arts: Different Spaces—on venue size, and lens choice

One of the trickiest things as a performing arts photographer is going into a theatre or concert hall you haven’t worked in before, and trying to pick the right places to be, and which lenses to use, for a show.

In most situations, I have two camera bodies on the go at any time, so I can have different lenses mounted on each of them to cover a wider range of fields of view—and of course so that if one camera has a problem of some kind, I can immediately switch to the other one. (Fortunately that doesn’t happen very much!)

But going into a room I don’t know is a special challenge, especially if I’m photographing while there’s an audience watching. If I have to stay out of sight and not disturb anyone, then I probably need longer lenses than I would if I can be right up at the front of the room capturing tight portraits of the performers on stage, during a rehearsal.

So, how long is long enough? And how do I work that out ahead of time, so I know what to bring?

Photographing the arts: revisiting a show (or Once, twice)

You could be forgiven for thinking the photo above looked familiar—after all, I did have a very similar one a couple of years ago!

But there’s a reason for that: the production of Once at Darlinghurst Theatre Company has made a return, with half the cast being new this time—so I was back there recently to photograph it for them, ahead of a nationwide tour.

And to be honest, while it’s something I’ve done before (re-photographing a show, I mean), somehow I was more nervous than I was the first time….

The iPhone 11 Pro camera: a photographer's first impressions

I haven’t updated my phone in four years, my iPhone 6S was starting to drive me nuts with some app or other draining the battery life, it was time; and being a photographer, of course I went for the one with the best / most cameras available. So, am I happy with it? Let’s have a look at some images…

PhotographyRobert CattoSeptember 23, 2019iPhone 11 Pro, iPhone, Camera, No Filter, Testing, Sydney, New South Wales, AustraliaComment

Photographing the arts: invisibility by design

There’s an inherent irony to photographing performance, I think - and, at times, to designing for the stage, especially for drama.

The ideal is, sometimes, not to be noticed; for your work, however complex or difficult it may have been to complete, to just be accepted as part of the production; not showy, or calling attention to itself, and jolting the audience out of the experience. If someone thinks ‘wow, what a great lighting cue that was!’ then it possibly wasn’t, because they noticed it. A truly great cue would be subtle, almost subliminal; and it would have the emotional impact that moment required, without necessarily being detected by the audience.

And so it is with photography - the ideal is for the camera, and the photographer, to be completely invisible - both to the performers on stage, and equally to the person viewing the photos later - and for the images to be a clear portal into the production, in a sense.

So, ironically, the better I am at not being noticed in the construction or design elements of an image, the more successful that image usually is…

Photographing the arts: the poster / promotional shoot

I’ve written before about the range of different ways a photographer can be involved in creating images for a production; and in my other essays on photographing the arts I’ve tended to focus on the actual production stills taken on stage, so it’s about time I looked at the poster / promotional image side of things.

There are a thousand different ways to go about creating a ‘teaser’ or promotional image for a show, so this is just an example of what we did in this particular case; but for me, the overall approach is usually the same: get to know the script, the characters and their relationships, find out about the design & directorial concepts for the production, come up with some visual ideas that underscore elements of what’s being created, and (if necessary) scout for locations that will work for what we want to achieve.

In this case, for the Darlinghurst Theatre Company production of Once, my feeling was that connection lay at the heart of the story - the relationship between Guy and Girl (as the characters are known), supported by the community of musicians they encounter through the course of their story…

Photographing the arts: on deadlines (or, the best you can do by Tuesday)

“It was a matter of the best you could do between now and Tuesday.” However, he was quick to add, “the best you could do between now and Tuesday is still a kind of best you can do...”

I first heard this quote from cinematographer Alex Funke, at the time a neighbour of mine in New Zealand - who worked for many years in the offices of Charles & Ray Eames - and it stuck with me as being something that applies to all creative work, especially in performing arts.

Photographing the arts: talking production photography on the Closing Night Theatre Therapy podcast

I had a chat recently with hosts Nate Edmondson and Suzy Wrong at the Closing Night: Theatre Therapy podcast, along with photographer Clare Hawley, about what’s involved in theatre photography - the business, as well as the art - and that episode has just been released over the weekend.

We talk about a lot of different elements of what we do, so I though I’d put together a few links here to some of my blog posts that overlap with the discussion, in case anyone wants to read more about a certain subject - or if I make more sense in writing than I do on the radio!

Photographing the arts: how do I support design decisions through production images?

Six characters in search of a voice, Small Mouth Sounds is a near-silent play featuring a group of individuals sharing a silent retreat, the quiet broken only by the pronouncements of the self-declared guru they’ve come to learn from. But will they learn anything from him, or each other?

The play is as much about the baggage the characters bring with them to the retreat, and how each of them handles their own failures and weaknesses - or, completely fails to - over the course of a few days together. In silence…

Photographing the arts: on shadows, strobes, & saturation

I wouldn’t describe myself as a massive fan of horror films, but I’ve seen my share. So when I was contacted about photographing Alice In Slasherland for Last One Standing, I was certainly interested - the idea of doing horror-comedy on stage is something that doesn’t get explored that often; apart from Evil Dead: The Musical I’d seen in Toronto years ago, I couldn’t think of another example off the top of my head.

Of course, theatre lighting is an interesting challenge at the best of times for a photographer; add in saturated colours, strobe lighting during action sequences, and fast movement in low light…well, it’s tricky!

Photographing the arts: on working long-term with your photographer

I’ve been working with director Dino Dimitriadis from Apocalypse Theatre for several years now, on shows around Sydney; in fact, I think Angels In America is our tenth production together! So it’s only natural that we’ve gotten to know each other’s methods of working, over that time.

It’s interesting to have an ongoing working relationship like ours; it’s not something that happens all that often, as a freelance photographer in the arts. Often we’re not contacted until quite close to production, with the result being that whoever’s available on the day is the person who does the work…

The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice, at Darlinghurst Theatre Company

I’m really pleased to be spending time with Darlinghurst Theatre Company this year - their whole mainstage season, in fact - not only because they do good work, but they’re also really lovely to work with. So it’s great to be ducking over to the Eternity Playhouse on a regular basis, all through 2019!

Our first production in this collaboration, which is on through 24 February at the Eternity Playhouse, is The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice - starring the amazing Caroline O’Connor as Mari, and the wonderful Geraldine Hakewill as her daughter “LV”.

Directed by Shaun Rennie - who I also worked with on Only Heaven Knows at the Hayes - it’s a dark comedy about finding your voice, breaking out of old relationship traps, and being true to yourself…

Carols by Cabaret at the Hayes Theatre, Sydney

The annual Carols by Cabaret event was earlier this week, once again raising funds for the Wayside Chapel’s annual appeal - donating a plate, to feed homeless residents on Christmas day.

This was my third time at the event, volunteering my time once again, to help in a small way - and as always it was a great deal of fun, featuring some of Sydney’s best performers from shows at the Hayes this year…

The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King World Premiere - 15 years on

Has it really been fifteen years?

As I mentioned this time last year (and the year before!), not long after I moved to Wellington in the late nineties, Peter Jackson started filming the Lord Of The Rings right in our neighbourhood of Seatoun, where I was living at the time. By the end of principal photography, I had been an Elf, an Orc, a Gondorian and a Rohan - most of them dead, some of them killed by the person I'd been playing the day before - on sets all over the Wellington region.

By the time the films came out, I was also a photographer - and by the premiere of the third film, there were a few more of us there…

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