The Drama in Black & White

Sandy Mackinnon & Rick Lindsay, from MMuDS production of The Elephant Man

While I like the colour version of this image I really like the Black and White. it gives what is a dramatic exchange even more drama. As beautiful as the colour are sometimes they can overwhelm the image and you can loose some of the drama of what is going on. When you are looking at taking a photograph try and train yourself to also look at the option of what it might look like in Black and White. Taking photographs during a Play rehearsal can be problematic. You need to have a fast enough shutter speed to freeze the action going on but the faster the shutter speed the less light is let onto the sensor. Theatre lighting is designed for the theatre and not for the photographer so you need the backstop of opening the aperture as wide as possible, this will depend on the lens you are using, and finally you will probably need to increase your ISO, remembering that if you increase it to high you can introduce photographic noise or grain into the photograph.

Taking photographs like this in those lighting conditions is a great way to improve your skills and to learn more about your cameras settings. Take it as a challenge. I find I learn more by being thrust into a project like this than aimlessly wandering about looking for photographic compositions. If you practice like this eventually your knowledge of your camera settings and how to use them will become a form of muscle memory and even if you are not interested in taking theatre photography you will be able to take what you have learned to the genre of photography that does interest you. My camera settings skills are still not yet muscle memory but taking several hundred photographs for this production has certainly put me on that road.