The Prints Of Darkness

Relax - there is no occult content in this post. Or if there is, it's hidden... Photography is a word made up of two Greek terms - for light and drawing. It was what we once did with silver salts and now do with electric signals. Videography is pretty much all electronics, but much the same principles apply. Except if you go to professional venues that have stage shows here in Perth. There you can sometimes be expected to make bricks without straw and videos without light. No names, no pack drill in the dark - you will probably have been in many of these caves yourself - struggling for a half a stop more and wondering if your camera can go to an ISO of three million before bursting into flames. Or you have been confronted by the Smorgasbord Of Lumens - the stage lit with everything from an arc light to a glow worm. The lighting scheme that has more colour temperatures than a fire at Disneyland. It is possible to cope when you are shooting stills if you can pump some flash into the scene and dictate some of the temperature. You'll always get a leak of tint but the main subjects can be a colour you choose...even if you are shooting from an audience seat. But if you are switched to video you are pretty much stuck with whatever the place dishes up. Don't get me wrong - go to a major theatre or venue with a good lighting crew and it will all be professional and consistent. They may change things throughout the show but they will be deliberate changes and you can find a compromise that works with theatre gels or main lighting. If you get to see a full dress rehearsal with lighting you can cope easily. It's the semi-pro show in the semi-pro venue that makes you wish you could run over someone with a semi. My last weekend saw two ventures - one in an entertainment club and one in a civic hall - and the latter was better than the former. The entertainment club does a sterling job with the seats, table, drinks, and sound system, but the stage lighting is straight down from the overhead, in patches, with no switchable component. There is a row of LEDs in from the proscenium but they are either not colour-controlled or not turned on at all. If the people who hire the hall want that they have to pay $ 50 extra and the manager of the venue has to be contacted to turn them on from his mobile phone... Extra lights are sometimes ranged on the side of the show area, but they are a mixed bag of bulbs and LEDs that cycle through disco changes. The result is a lighting scheme that has no constant colour to deal with - and dancers who move into patches of light that differ so widely that you cannot set a colour balance. AWB is overwhelmed and searches frantically for some compromise, which it never finds. As a contrast - the community hall has tall Stephenson windows and a square of LED in the roof - and the consistency of the light is such that the AWB can cope - and all the dancers look good. No dramatic pools of light but no horrid colour shifts either. Okay. Someone who works at CE suggest a solution for the entertainment club. I suspect I am going to have to provide my own lighting for some of these bean-fests and the Phottix Nuada panels may be the answer. As I shoot from front of audience I don't want to occlude the audience's view but a couple of light stands with panels from right and left front stage might do it. They will have to be battery jobs as you can't trust electric lines under the public's feet and if I am going to get them to go on and off when I can't get to the back of the panels, a remote or phone app control will be needed. Or I could tie the stage manager to a chair with his mobile phone and poke him whenever I needed light. Decisions, decisions...