Alex Waterhouse-Hayward: An iPhone 3G's View Of Mascall's White Spider

Technical rehearsal, White Spider, November 24 2011
From left to right
Robert Halley & Jessie Kwan
Darcy McMurray & Thoenn Glover
Marvin Vergara

Early in my photographic career in Vancouver I realized that the most important aspect to be learned was to develop a distinct personal style. It served me well in the magazine work that I did and for as long as magazines were paramount in Vancouver, Canada and abroad I did very well. It paid to stand out.

When I discovered dance about 15 years ago I knew that there was no way I could compete then (and now) with the paramount dance photographer David Cooper. I also realized that the style of taking pictures of dancers in peak movement in large photographic studio stages was not my forte or of my interest. It was difficult to insert a personal style into them. So whenever I had the opportunity to photograph dancers I insisted they come to my studio for portraits or I took portraits back stage with my own lights.

When I received an invitation from Jeniffer Mascall to attend a technical rehearsal of White Spider, a day before the double performances the next day (Friday), I had ambivalent thoughts. I did not want to take performance photographs. This sort of thing was the realm of excellence of the expensive digital single lens reflex camera. I don’t own one.

Top from left to right
Robert Halley, Marvin Vergara
Bottom from let to right
Darcy McMurray, Jessie Kwan, Thoenn Glover

So I showed up with a 35 mm Nikon FM-2 loaded with fast colour film with which I thought I could take a halfway decent group portrait shot. I was to be disappointed as I chose the wrong place and the wrong stage lighting to do this and my picture is full of bad shadows. It is not one of my best. I should have stuck to my guns and taken the picture with my own lights and with my big camera.

I was to be pleasantly surprised by the performance of my basic iPhone 3G. I did have vantage points (on stage and from the side) that are not ordinary ones. I also, while trying to stay out of the way, knew that I could not ruin the performance by showing my face because it was a tech rehearsal.

The real frustration, and it was a big one, was that my iPhone had a tremendous lag time between my pressing its shutter and it actually taking a picture. The lag time was not predictable and the usual importance of attempting to capture peak movement was thwarted at most times. But a few of the images, by luck, seemed to be fine and by further enlarging and cropping them I have selected a few of which I am happy to place here.