Once upon the time…
…I get asked why, as established photographer, I still work as a stage technician. For those who know me, the reason is obvious.
I write this after another four-day-in-a-row shift in my theater, during which I set another record of mine. My shifts from Thursday through Sunday took 20, 17, 20 and 16 hours. If you’re not aware, it is possible to walk 25km per day without leaving the building. But enough about that. I have another shift today, to which I’m not looking forward to. There will be no challenge. No reason to improvise and nothing to learn. I feel stupid by feeling this way, but it is like that. I cannot express how much I enjoy those long hours, filled to the brim with problems. And of course how much I love the appreciation of my work. Last text I got was this: “If there were more technicians like you, world wouldn’t be on fire.”
World on fire as captured third day of my shift. “Out of comfort” / chor. Michaela Dzurovcinova / Jan Bara in the frame / LD Filip Horn / 135mm; T 1/250; F 2.0; ISO 3200; R3
I did some of my own light designs.
This picture should describe the use of aberration of light beam shining trough a bird cage in performance “Seven bricks” by Zuzana Malina / Zuzana Malina in the frame / LD me / 85mm; T 1/250; F 2.0; ISO 3200; 1Ds Mark III
Last one of them premiered just about a month ago.
“How Zojka hepled the Earth to breathe” / chor. Petra Houskova & Anna Benhakova / Docasna Company / Petra Houskova in the frame / LD me / 50mm; T 1/250; F 1.4; ISO 3200; R3
Theater I work in does not have enough money to provide some better console than 13yo Congo Jr. Which theater does these days… So I had to provide for myself and ended up with this baby.
EOS/Nomad by ETC
I’m running ETC EOS on Lenovo notebook with very competent RAM and graphics card, Dell touchscreen and two types of X-Keys keyboards. Pure joy.
Two-layered X-Keys XK-40. Red layer as cue-lists, Blue layer as fader bumpers.
Fun and never ending true in this line of work is, there is always something new to learn. You will always find something.
Last thing I’ve learnd si, how to turn my phone into a focus wand thanks to EOS by ETC
If there is time and need, I do take photos during the performance I do lights for. It just sounds wrong, I know. Funny enough, after that I can just alt-tab into Photoshop and develop some photos on the spot, on my “lightning console”. Some of my photos are taken while running from the console to the stage and back, clicking the Go button and shutter button as the show progresses.
Picture taken while doing both photography and lights. “How Zojka hepled the Earth to breathe” / chor. Petra Houskova & Anna Benhakova / Docasna Company / Petra Houskova & Natalie Matyskova in the frame / LD me / 85mm; T 1/125; F 1.2; ISO 3200; R3
It is extremely easy to connect this work with dance photography for many practicle reasons. Since switching places during a dance performance should be a crime punishable by tossing one out of the theater and never letting him back in, often enough I choose my spot in the auditorium in advance. I have a somewhat easy way to do so just by looking at the ceiling. I’m usually very aware of the abilities of the lights I see, and I can determine the right spot a lot easier. And not only that. By knowing the type of light source, you can avoid troubles like nowadays popular banding, improper color temperature or overexposure. I’m not going to get into details, but combining these two professions is a blast.
And the inevitable jokes on my account I hear sometimes from light designers, when I arrive to take photos…
For example:
LD: “It is really dark. Should I raise the intensity for the rehearsal?”
Me: “No, I’ll adjust.”
LD(smiling darkly): “Good. I wouldn’t do it anyway.”
When arrived in the middle of the focusing session.
LD: “You look like we should be done already.”
This one time I was showing functionality of my “console” and I was asked to create a Go button on the touchscreen.
LD: “Can you make it bigger?”
Me: makes it a size of a half of the monitor.
LD: “Can you make it bigger?”
Me: makes it so big, you see only a letter G and half of the O.
LD: “Can I touch it?”
Or this glorious question…
LD: “I’m mixing halogen, vacuum tubes, LED sources and daylight. Is it ok for you?”
When your monitor is one giant button.
It is a lot friendlier community than photographers. Maybe because they need each other a lot more than photographers. Photographers are too often whiny little b_tches.
