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| Josh Martin - Dancer - 2008 |
I feel quite up and up. My dead cat came back very much alive and I bask in the knowledge that I had a couple of jobs from the Straight this week. Like my cat I am still much alive. But the mild euphoria is tinged with some regret of what could have been.
I have, for some years, been engaged by the folks on West Broadway to photograph every year the principals for the fall arts preview. In recent years they added comics to their list of visual artists, dancers, actor/directors, and musicians. Two thousand and eight was the last year I was able to take individual photographs of each dancer, musician, etc. This means that I could emphasize the actors’ or dancers’ individual sensibility and style. I attempted to bring to all the individual shots some sort of theme. In 2008 the theme was the colour red.
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| Charlie Gallant - Actor - 2008 |
The next year brought a new cost cutting approach which has been the rule since. I have to photograph these people as pairs. The dancers, the comics, etc are photographed together. Many times they do not even know each other. It is a tough job to somehow combined the idea of what they do while in some way maintaining a sense of the individual. It is this that dampened my almost happy mood of these past days. The pictures do not entirely work. The theme was a Vancouver location. Thus the dancers were on the roof of the Scotia Vancouver Dance Centre, the musicians by the Orpheum, the comics at City Hall (looking for UFOs), the visual artists at the Morris and Helen Belkin Gallery and the actors at Havana's table 9.
The purpose of this blog is to reveal and instruct on the thought process that I arrived at. Perhaps some of you readers might have found a better method.
The technical side of thing is as follows. In all, I used a Mamiya RB-67 Pro-SD with Ektachrome 100G. In all I used a 2x3 foot softbox with a flash shooting through it. For the comics, the musicians and the visual artist I used a battery pack Norman 200-B which I purchased in 1977. For the dancers and the actors I used a somewhat newer (25 years old) Dynalite power pack with a Dynalite head.
For the photos except the comics and the dancers and the musicians I used a 90mm lens. For the comics, musicians and dancers it was a 50mm wide angle.
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| Meredith Kalaman & Daniel Marshalsay - Dancers - 2011 |
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| Kevin Bennett & Anita Rochon actor/directors - 2011 |
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| Kathleen Allan and Iman Habibi - Musicians - 2011 |
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| Andrew Barber & Adam Pateman - Comedians - 2011 |
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| Raymond Boisjoly & Rebecca Chaperon - Visual Artists -2011 |
