States of Grace

I had the pleasure of photographing one of Britain’s great actors, Joss Ackland, the other day. My first memory of him is when I was about 15! watching a thing on TV called “The Cres”. To meet him after all that time was a great pleasure. He was in conversation with Geoff Colman of Central School of Speech and Drama. It was so entertaining to listen to that I had to really concentrate on taking the pictures and not just sit there laughing at his anecdotes and stories. Did you know that the first American actor to burst through a set of French windows and ask “Anyone for tennis?” was Humphrey Bogart?!

Joss Ackland in conversation with Geoff Colman of Central School of Speech and Drama. © 2009 Patrick Baldwin. All rights reserved.

The other day I went to the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. Shamefully this is the first time I’ve been there since going digital which is what made the visit so interesting. I always say to people if you want to learn about lighting visit an art gallery because all our photographic lighting comes from painting. Photographers even refer to Rembrandt lighting.

I was there with my assistant and we were being silly and pixel peeping. In other words just looking at pure technique and skill. It is an occupational hazard with photographers probably born out of insecurity that we look at other photographs at the microscopic level in order to, most likely, find fault with something that has no bearing at all on the image or has any impact on a non photographic viewer. looking in this way made me realise a few things. One is that painters don’t do shallow focus in the way that photographers and cinematographers do. Everything is sharp front to back mostly. if it is soft it seems to be as a result of emphasis rather than a deliberate device to render something out of focus meaning the dress is more important than the dog so the dog gets less work than the dress. What this means is we get a very “present” image that stands out but is not a function of shallow focus. Our eyes don’t see with shallow focus. It’s only when we scan a photograph taken with that technique that we see it. To see it in real life we would have to build blurred tables to put in front of the television we are watching!

The other thing I noticed was the painting equivalent of over sharpening. The eyes on one painting were given so much emphasis that if the same were done in a photograph it would be rejected and laughed at. It was fascinating to look at the art with a new viewpoint and gave me a much greater understanding of the various techniques and quality of painting that was on show.

I think I can actually thank Photoshop for making me see things differently. My retouching barely has to extend beyond basic cloning and colour correction but occasionally I have to draw things in or put drinks in a glass and you are forced to confront how real you can make something look. It is pretty easy to tell when you have got it right but can be impossible to get it right in the first place. So Photoshop has refined my ability to draw and also my ability to see.

Below are examples of an image that had a drink put in a formerly empty glass and an image with shallow focus.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After thinking about all this while looking at very representational art I then turned round and saw a wall full of Turners which were entirely blurred! But what great art.

Magenta Aint A Colour. As pretentious photographers we will say anything to avoid saying the word purple and choose to use the word magenta so as to appear sophisticated. Similarly we never say “out of focus” when we can say “a little soft”. This clearly speaks to our deepest insecurities. According to the link above the colour magenta doesn’t exist! It’s a construct of our mind to bridge the gap between red and violet because magenta doesn’t have a wavelength assigned to it.

So…if it doesn’t exist does that mean that photographers are not pretentious after all?

Thanks to The British Journal of Photography for bringing this up.

These images are of Guiseppe Picone and Rebecca Sewell of English National Ballet performing in Giselle. Taken during a performance at the Manchester Palace Theatre. There is a bridge running across the width of the stage just behind the proscenium arch. I worked for English National Ballet for 12 years or so on the stage crew so I know my way around the backstage of a theatre. On this occasion I went up after the interval and waited. I had one camera and a 70-200 lens with the lens hood taped up. Dropping anything at all at this point would have been a terminal career move to say the least and of course could have seriously injured one or both of the dancers. An SLR and zoom lens dropping from 35 ft would be very painful I’m sure.

I was shooting on transparency in those days, around 1995 I think. Ektachrome T320 tungsten balanced pushed at least one stop if not two. Wide open at 2.8 and probably a 30th of second with me wedged into the catwalk. At least they were not running around dancing so a slow shutter speed was ok and framing was easy. No bracketing or “chimping” the screen on the back to check everything.

It looks like Guiseppe is looking straight at me but he cannot see me because there is a bar full of lights between me and him. I was a little disconcerted though. The last thing I want to do is distract a dancer when he is supposed to be dying!

In those pre digital camera days I was scanning everything to get a digital file although the only retouching on these images is to take out a seam in the dance floor lino.

 

 

The New York Times has a fantastic set of performers photographs taken by world renowned conflict photographer Paolo Pellegrin. Click on the image to see the slideshow with commentary.

What is it with dogs and snowmen? Today in London we have had the heaviest snow for eighteen years apparently. Much to my dog Buddy’s  delight!

 

I do a lot of theatre photography naturally but not all of it is in theatres! This shot was done in a disused warehouse in Kennington.

Every year students at Central School of Speech and Drama create a site specific piece of theatre. A large group basically move into an environment chosen for it’s potential for the weird and wonderful. They then spend a week or so devising a show using all the different spaces to create their theatrical event. Invariably it involves the audience being led through the event to experience and sometimes participate in little corners of theatre happening in unexpected places and rooms. It is always a visual extravaganza. I always have no clue what to expect. I always have no idea what it all means-because I am concentrating so hard on getting good photographs-and I always love every minute of it and usually go round twice.

It is quite a challenge in some ways to photograph the event because it is mostly very dark and mysterious so exposures are usually the wrong side of slow and high ISO’s are essential. On the other hand the shows themselves are so free spirited that I shoot with total abandon and get some extraordinary images from these events. I also get a lot of rubbish which all dies under my delete button when I get home. The joy of digital.

For reasons still not explained to me the image here is from a show called “Squishy Bananas”. I think it was a working title that never changed. Seemingly as a result of that all subsequent shows now have names with a bit more gravitas…like…”Hamlet”.

This is an overview of my dance photography. Clicking on any image during the slideshow will take you to that image in my Photoshelter archive where it can be licensed for many different usages and also where a print can be ordered. The arrow at the bottom right corner allows you to copy the code enabling you to embed this slideshow in your own blog or website or Flickr/Facebook page and you have my permission to do that!

You will also find over 2000 more images available from my archive all of which can be bought as high quality prints in a variety of sizes or licensed for commercial and personal use.

Begona Cào, dancer with English National Ballet waits in the wings, on the left, before making her entrance, on the right. These photographs were taken during her second performance of English National Ballet’s production of Manon at the London Coliseum theatre. When I spoke to her about her debut performance she said she had cherished every moment and it was what she had been waiting for from the start of her career. What impressed me was that no nerves got in her way. She just enjoyed every moment.

More of Begona and the whole of the production can be seen in my Photoshelter gallery.

 

Photographic magazine Photo District News posts a photograph online everyday  in a large size joining a trend for various media outlets doing the same thing. The image that caught my eye is by Nina Berman called “Stealth Bomber, Atlantic City, New Jersey, 2007″ from her book Homeland published by Trolley Books. While people relax at the seaside the unmistakable silhouette of a B2 stealth bomber can be seen in the sky. Eerie.