A.D. Drumm Images, LLC – Landscape, Portrait, and Fine Art Photography in Rochester MN Photography

Rochester Civic Theatre just completed their 60th season with a production of Four Plays for Coarse Actors. Over the course of the show, the actors put on four different plays – two per act – ostensibly as a church fundraising activity. A wide range of problems ensue, including less than remarkable acting or singing, prop problems, set piece problems, and on and on.

The director, Greg, likes to point out how he has witnessed nearly every problem they encounter – for real. I know he has some remarkable stories. Lynne has a few of her own (that Italian play). And I’ve witnessed some myself. Anyway, it was a hoot.

I had quite a range of sets, lighting, and costumes to shoot, pretty much covering the gamut I usually see.

Lots of full stage activity, but I was able to zoom in from time to time for a good close shot.

We had moving, sometimes sparse set pieces as well as box sets. That was handled rather cleverly. Box sets are usually unmoving, there for the duration of the show. But, obviously walls and such had to go away for some of the “plays.”

There were some good compositions that work pretty well in photos.

One of the funnier characters was this table which began losing legs forcing the actors to replace them. This leads to lots of (scripted!) improvisation as the players search for a way out of the scene while dealing with holding up the table. Real problems like this are often the topics for conversation when theatre people get together.

The final play is a Shakespearean knock off, sort of like Midsummer Nights Dream, but not. It had cool lighting, lots of colorful costumes, and a flying actor.

That made for some fun photos including this one from near the end of the show.

Greg had another little idea which I learned on the day of the shoot. He wanted to do the cast and crew photo as a composite containing the “casts” of each of the four shows. Okay…

I was able to do three of the four pretty easily. It was that danged fourth one with the crew that took a bit more thinking. But I think I managed to pull it off pretty well. I guess I kinda like a Photoshop challenge now and then!

This past week, I shot some promo photos for Rochester Civic Theatre’s next show, Four Plays for Coarse Actors. It’s not a show I’ve seen, but the premise involves a set of actors performing four different plays, and it sounds like it’s hilarious! The actors I know in the show all rave about it and are having a lot of fun with it. Greg is a terrific comedy director, so I’m certainly looking forward to the show.

Frankly, any show that has Nick in a jester’s head gear has my attention! The tech rehearsal was this morning, and hopefully it went well.

Promo shoots come around the time the Post-Bulletin sends their photographer over for a photo to accompany the pre-show article in the entertainment section. Sets and costumes are a ton of work, so at this point in the preparation, neither is really nearing completion. There was a nice set of costumes available this time, although I hear that there are many costume changes, many of them fast and furious.

The show opens this coming Friday. Lynne and I will have to miss another show opening – two in a row! I hope we’ll end that streak in the Fall for Kill Me Deadly. We do enjoy opening nights! We’ll be buying our tickets for a later show soon.

Meanwhile, I’ve begun a new personal photography project. Had a fun shoot with Chris and Jesse getting some good images to start my project. More shoots to come, and I’ll share more about the project in the future.

I’ll be thinking about my parents this Memorial Day and transcribing some of Mom’s letters to Dad during WWII this weekend. Hope you have a good and enjoyable holiday weekend!

I shot the show photos for Rochester Civic Theatre’s production of Chicago the Musical last weekend. We stayed to watch the show after the photos were done – my third time seeing it. I could happily sit through it again, except this is the final weekend and both remaining shows are sold out! The cast, crew, musicians, and all the folks who made it happen did a fabulous job. I’m a big fan of RCT, and I’m sure it shows in my posts here, but this show was truly phenomenal.

At intermission, we heard comments like, “This is like being in row ten at a Broadway show.” And this was from someone who knows Broadway. I heard folks say they can’t believe this is in Rochester. Believe it. And these weren’t professional actors brought in from elsewhere. These people live and work in and around Rochester, MN.

I knew I had to do my best to create images worthy of the production. It’s interesting to compare this shoot, where we stage the photos, to shooting at Riverland where I shoot live during a rehearsal. There are pluses and minuses to both methods. There is some amount of spontaneity lost in the staged shots, although good actors do their acting thing which makes up for a lot of such issues.

The faces of Amos and Roxie Hart are expressive and pull us in. Two fine actors. Amos’ hand reaching for Roxie, but tentative, not quite there. This says everything about their relationship.

On the other hand, we can tighten a group and help produce a more compelling still photo. We can ensure I’m able to capture a particular moment. When shooting live, I invariably miss things either looking the wrong way or standing in the wrong place. But the live shoot can show emotions that are as real as it gets in theatre. Either way, it’s fun to shoot and if I can produce a few stand-out photos, all the better.

Sean is a relatively recent find on the RCT stage, but he hit the ground running or maybe sprinting, appearing in every show last season and many this. I’m not sure where he gets his energy, but Chicago was a great showcase for his unique voice. I moved to the side to catch this shot of him with his MC microphone. It’s especially cool when the stage lighting provides a lighting pattern that’s essentially what I’d have used if I was lighting him.

Lisa, who’s face currently adorns my Facebook page, blew us away once again with her voice. She played Glinda in The Wizard of Oz. She’s had other singing roles since, but here she was able to really show off her instrument.

For several of the actors, this was something of a showcase. Audrey as Velma was remarkable. Audrey is a jazz singer, so you can imagine how well this suits her. (I recently recorded a video of Audrey singing by a bonfire at her own birthday party. You can get a small taste of her voice here.) Laura as Roxie made her RCT debut. Their duet in My Own Best Friend was unforgettable.

Sets were cool, costumes great, and the lighting I love to shoot. Blue and red gels. Guys dressed up like babies. What else could you want? Really!

Like others, Sean gave us a terrific performance as Amos, Mr. Cellophane. Some of the women cried, everyone identified with the poor naive fellow, soft spoken, loyal.

The strong colors in the show were interesting to deal with in the photos. I actually had to tone them down a touch partly because my Canon’s digital sensor really reacts to red light.

This shot says a lot about the production. First, look at the colors. The jail set is nearly monochromatic, the guard dressed in black and white. Stage lights are nearly all gel’d with something, but here the color from the lights is minimal. What stands out is Ellie as Hunyak with her bright red costume. What I’d consider a classic use of light and color in a photograph, and here it is on stage. The visual arts are more closely related than we’d sometimes believe.

Ellie crunched her foot with something earlier. Was it broken? I never heard, but she went on to perform, wincing only when she faced away from the audience. A professional performance by a volunteer actor.

I’m happy with my photos, and I hope you are. There are a few more on my Facebook page. I think tonight I’ll sit at home wishing I was at one of the final shows. And now, my exit music.

Um…

Last night, after the opening performance of Chicago (an awesome show, by the way!), Rochester Civic Theatre announced their next season which begins this September. With the new shows unveiled, I can finally show you the show posters I’ve been working on!

I was just looking at the files on my computer. I began working on RCT posters for the 2006-2007 season. I’ve had some posters I’m quite proud of, but my skills in lighting and taking the photos that form the basis as well as my Photoshop chops have improved a ton. Learning is part of being an artist, and I hope I am always able to look back and say, yes, I’m better today.

I thought I’d present the posters in order of the coming season which starts with Kill Me Deadly. This is, in fact, my favorite. The idea – Greg Miller, artistic director at RCT, again developed the basic concepts – was to model this after a film noir poster from the movies. We used  Bogart’s Maltese Falcon as our model. Greg and I collaborate from the outset, and I send proofs to Greg during the process. Is this what you were thinking? Thoughts? Greg sends back his ideas, notes my misspellings(!), etc. For this, it was, can it be more painterly? More graphic, less photographic. Okay. Let’s try this.

An interesting turn was the background. I had a nice black to transparent gradient behind the models, not unlike what you see here. But at some point, I decided to use one of the newer painting brushes in Photoshop CS5 and just draw in a background by hand. I loved it right away. Added some layer effects to our hero to set him off from the background, and we were down to just tweaking. I think I’d enjoy having this one printed up big and hung up like a movie poster.

Next up is Flowers for Algernon. I don’t know this show in detail, but I’ve heard it compared to an old film, Charlie, which I saw years ago when it was in theaters. This was fairly straightforward, trying a few different concepts for the mouse – how it looks, where it sits. One of my final changes was to intertwine its tail slightly with the “w” to make it feel more connected. I began with a plain background and Greg suggested finding “smart things” to put there. That worked pretty well. I had some different color variations but ended up with a pretty monochromatic palette, which I think works.

Photographically, the poster for The Neverending Storywas the most interesting. I needed to light the boy’s face as though the light emanated from the book itself. He was a trooper, letting me shoot several shots with small adjustments, getting things right, while being blasted in the face by a gel’d flash.

The December show tends to be something with wide family appeal for the holidays, so this show should fit the bill. It will have it’s technical challenges, too, I’m assuming. Dragons and all.

Part of what I love about the posters for this season is the variety. We go from a very photographic image to a pair that are quite graphic and non-photographic. The family of three in this image was one I showed a while back in an earlier preview post. Since I use photos as the core of the posters, I made sure I shot this from the proper angle. It works so much easier and better than trying to morph the angle and perspective in post processing. I stood on a ladder to take this shot.

The long shadow deserves a second look as the effect there – as it was in Greg’s original sketch – shows subtly the theme of this show. It’s amazing how adding the background texture to this image makes it whole. It somehow connects the elements producing a very different look than a plain background.

The 2013 spring musical will be The Marvelous Wonderettes with a lot of classic 50s and 60s music. The logo for this show was provided to the theatre, so it became the central element. We shot this photo with our four female models and, as you might guess, I basically traced their forms. When I was a kid, we had an artist in the neighborhood who taught art classes in his home on Saturday mornings. Mom knew I loved to draw, so she signed me up. I took his classes for several years. I’d never claim to be much of a painter, but I did learn a lot which helps me in my photography somewhat, and certainly helps when I have tasks like this. I think I did a reasonable job with things like the necklaces and other elements. He’s no longer with us, but I think of Joe Saling whenever I do something like this.

Kayley was blowing a big bubble for our photos, but I ended up creating a bubble from scratch to work a bit better. She also had a short wig that didn’t come across very “girly,” so Greg asked if I could add a pony tail. That helped a lot. I pulled colors from the logo except for the hair, and added a bunch of stars to the background based on those in the logo.

As it turned out, the last show for next season, Rounding Third, was the first poster I did. We had a couple ideas for this poster and ended up with this one. No human models, so I was able to begin working on it right away. I borrowed a baseball from a fellow at work who provided several from which to choose. This one had enough dirt and character to be interesting. I began with a black background. Greg suggested a ball field. Well, I just happened to have some shots I took years ago that worked. I gave this a hint of the sports magazine cover look that I used last season for Home Games. But just a hint.

That’s it – six shows that look like the makings of a great season. Season tickets and RCT memberships are on sale now. If you’re in Rochester, I highly recommend becoming both a member and a season ticket holder. If you don’t know much about RCT and the quality of their productions, buy a ticket to Chicago and see for yourself. The talent on- and off-stage is remarkable. It’s a bargain, and you’ll be helping keep the arts active in Rochester. There’s really nothing like live theatre. And, by the way, you’ll be able to see much bigger versions of my posters!