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

January 26, 2013

Fun with Lighting

Filed under: Portraits — Tony Drumm @ 10:37 am

Had a fun couple shoots with Becca this week to update her head shots. I thought it would be fun to shoot a couple photos using a glamour lighting setup. I then did a glamour treatment in post – this isn’t what you’d use for a normal head shot, but it is fun for me and it can be a cool photo for Becca to have.

I have tons of great shots to work through to give her a nice set from which to choose. Oh, and for half the photos, I had a VAL – a voice activated lighting stand. Becca’s husband, Jared, helped by holding a reflector. I offered to let him do that for me all the time, but he thought I should pay him or something. Go figure!

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January 23, 2013

More Framily Photos

Filed under: General photography,Portraits — Tony Drumm @ 7:03 pm

My previous two posts showed a couple specially processed photos from the session I shot with these folks. They refer to themselves as Framily.

I thought I’d show a few more normal shots of the group. They had a lot of fun ideas – as you can tell from the earlier shots. Most are theatre folks, so as the photographer, part of my job is just get out of the way and work with what they give me.

And usually, that’s plenty. You can see how camera shy and reserved they are.

It makes the shoot a lot of fun. For me, anyway! I think they were enjoying the shoot, too.

I did some post work to clean up the background and help them stand out.

But they came dressed for the occasion, with black that worked well against the white background, and some other bold colors.

Gesture, being an important part of a photo, was not much concern for me.

All in all, it went well, we all enjoyed the shoot, and I think we have some decent images out of it. Hopefully, Becca and her framily will think so, too!

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January 16, 2013

These Guys Are Trouble

Filed under: General photography,Portraits — Tony Drumm @ 6:00 pm

Here’s another short post with another photo from the group shoot I did. Couldn’t let the guys off the hook. Looking at their pose, there just had to be something big happening behind them.

I don’t know – do these guys look like they belong with the gals from my last post? You decide.

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January 11, 2013

Postprocessing – Part of making and image

Filed under: General photography,Portraits — Tony Drumm @ 5:58 pm

During the holidays, I did several shoots. I’m slowly catching up with them. I’ve been doing more work on my I Dance personal project I’ve blogged about before. I’ll discuss that project in more detail eventually – perhaps after I display some of them at RCT’s run of The Producers – but the link to today’s topic is postproduction.

I enjoy working a photo in Photoshop perhaps as much as I love shooting. Back in the day, I was happy to spend time in the darkroom creating prints and exercising the various techniques I knew to achieve the results I wanted. But it was slow – incredibly slow by today’s standards. And there was the chemicals and the costs. The color paper I used, Cibachrome, was great but very pricey.

For most of my photographs, post means some adjustments, culling out the best shots, maybe hitting Photoshop or a plug-in for a few. For some, though, I look at the image and try to let it speak to me – what does it say, what’s it want me to do.

So it was with the image above. I did a shoot with Rebecca and several of her friends. The gals all got together to do this shot. Jay Maisel says with a shot like this, it’s not my photograph, it’s our photograph. That’s very true, and as I’ve said before, I love shooting actors. This Charlie’s Angels pose is pretty common, but actors give it that something extra.

Looking at it, it said I needed to extract the women and it said red. Okay, I have to admit it – a lot of images say red to me. I pulled them off the background and added the yellow-red gradient background, then did a couple finishing touches with Perfect Effects and Color Efex Pro. When I was done, it looked like a square crop would complete it.

I have a lot more work to do with the other shots from this shoot, but sometimes I have to start with the one that speaks to me the loudest.

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December 30, 2012

Neverending Story

Filed under: Rochester Civic Theatre — Tony Drumm @ 10:53 am

Rochester Civic Theatre’s latest production was The Neverending Story. The cast was mostly young people, but there were a few adult actors including Lynne. The story is the same, at a high level, as in the 1980s film of the same name, but it’s actually more complex and more interesting.

There were lots of colorful costumes and a pretty terrific set. It was a fairly technical production including a few flying scenes. With all that, the young actors conquered the challenges.

From a photography point of view, the big challenge was the lighting as it was often pretty dark. There were also a few scenes with spotlights which add to the contrast. If you only want to capture the main subject – the one standing in the spot – it’s fine. In fact, it can be great because it’s plenty bright. But often, you also want to show other characters on stage to some degree, and that can be tough.

Here, there was The Nothing which was represented by, well, I’m not sure what it was. It involved actors inside a flexible black fabric that could move and undulate. I’m not sure I did it complete justice although I have a few shots that show it a bit better. But along with spots, it wanted to just disappear. Maybe that’s okay – it was The Nothing!

Other scenes were simpler to capture using my normal camera settings for shows. I’ve been shooting so many, that I have dedicated one of the three custom setups on the 5DMkIII to theatre. I just select C1, and I’m ready to start shooting. I do still have to adjust exposure from there, but it starts me close to where I need to be, and ISO and other settings are ready to go.

My favorite scenes to shoot were those with the turtle, Morla. It was a fun set piece, the head thrusts out of the body before the audience realizes what it is. Then, the lighting is this mix of green and blue and looked great. It was very dark, though, but the color of the gels ends up nice and saturated. It’s one of the joys of digital: when I made my first image and checked the LCD, I could see already how great it looked. It’s sort of “a moment” for a photographer, knowing you have captured something special. Makes me smile.

Sadly, the show ran only two weekends, although they had Saturday matinees and a weekday show for local school children. Many of the young actors were making their main stage debut at RCT, and they did great. Watch RCT in the next month or so as they have some special events and performances dedicated to diversity in what’s become a yearly tradition.

Meanwhile, I’ve had a couple other shoots recently I may try to blog about. But for now, I need to get back to editing! Have a great, and creative, 2013!

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December 8, 2012

White Christmas at Riverland

Filed under: General photography — Tony Drumm @ 3:37 pm

Last week, I was back to Riverland Community College to photograph their production of Irving Berlin’s White Christmas. I’ve seen and photographed this musical several times now just in the past three years! RCT did this show in 2010 and 2011.

As stories go, it’s not Pulitzer Prize material. I’m not sure if the movie spawned the theatrical production, but I think so. I remember that Bing Crosby first sang White Christmas in the movie Holiday Inn. I thought it had a more interesting story, but many of the shows in that time period were just loosely plotted to move you from one featured song to the next.

RCT did the show twice consecutively because audiences love it. And, I’m sure what they love is the music and dancing.

Shooting the show live, as I do at Riverland, has its challenges. But this time I knew the show really well which helped me anticipate what was coming and where to be. Even though the direction and blocking are different, it’s still the same show after all. I don’t know if that’s the reason, or maybe because it’s just a musical with a lot of big numbers, but I shot a ton of photos. A ton. A whole lot. Thank goodness for digital.

The great photographer Jay Maisel talks of the three important qualities of photograph: Light, Color, and Gesture. In theatre, we certainly have light – sometimes difficult, but sometimes magical. We have color. Some shows are filled with bold color which can make photographs that just jump out at you. This show had a lot Christmas color as you’ll see below. Some shows are monochromatic, usually for a good reason, and that can be just as effective.

But gesture, I think, is the common theme of good theatre shots. It pulls us in and makes us involved in some way with what was happening. Sometimes it makes us smile, sometimes sigh. But it does promote a reaction, and that’s a wonderful thing when you make a still photo.

For the set in this post, I tried to select shots that demonstrate gesture, at least my version of it. There was plenty of action, so I had a lot from which to choose. But it’s not just about movement. I think of gesture as movement with meaning. Or, as in the photo above, perhaps the gesture of being still with movement about to be.

Sometimes, it’s a reaction that draws me. I’m continuously amazed at the ability of actors to react and express emotion honestly, realistically. It’s a gift and talent, and it’s fun to watch.