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”.
© 2005 Patrick Baldwin. All rights reserved.
