I didn't photograph the kid's play, JUNGALBOOK, in black and white but when I started messing around with B&W conversions I just couldn't stop.

I photographed a play on Saturday. The scenery and costumes were very colorful and the play itself was tremendous fun. Even for 63 year olds. I photographed it mostly with two cameras; one equipped with a prime, 56mm 1.2 lens and the other fitted with a 16-55mm f2.8 zoom lens.  After I did my post production on the 1,000+ files and sent along a huge gallery of brilliant color images I waded back into the ocean of files and started pulling out some of my favorites with the intention of tweaking them a bit further and sending them over to the marketing team as "Kirk's selects." 

I pulled the first image into SnapSeed and played around for a bit. I liked my color tweaks just fine but then I hit the black and white menu and I had too much fun. There's a film look in the program but it's way, way too contrasty for any imaginable human use. But it does have a brightness slider, a contrast slider (of which I made considerable and successful use) and a grain slider. Rendering your images into edgy black and whites is both edgy and filled with a nostalgic memory of how at least 90% of our jobs were done when I first started out.

Here's my very limited set of black and white variations from the play, JUNGALBOOK, at ZachTheatre.org. If you want to see the difference between the black and white versions and the original color ones I've set up a small gallery on Smugmug.com: https://kirktuck.smugmug.com/A-group-of-selects-and-variations-for-Jungal-Book-at/n-52n6ZL/

Go take a peek and see the difference.

Cameras: Fujifilm X-H1.

I met a tiger on stage yesterday. Thank goodness she wasn't hunting photographers at the time.

 Amber Quick as Sherakhan in ZachTheatre.org's JUNGALBOOK

I don't know if it's me or if it's the people picking productions at Zach Theatre (I suspect that I really only like fun, happy uplifting plays and get quickly bored with bitter sweet or message-y dramas) but lately I've really enjoyed watching, photographing and doing video of the kid's plays much more so than the "grown up" fare. The kids are just so darn good at acting and dancing and having fun. And, by extension, infecting their audiences with a sense of joy and good energy. 

That's exactly what I experienced yet again at the dress rehearsal of JUNGALBOOK at Zach yesterday. I went to the early swim workout so I wouldn't have to rush to make it in time for the 11 a.m. start of the dress rehearsal. I was packing three cameras and three lenses and I'd read the script this time, trying to script engineer how the play would unfold in front of me.

The lighting was contrasty and peppered with deep pools of shadow that switched almost at will to spots of bleachy brightness. It kept me guessing and had my fingers glued to the aperture ring so I could constantly make on-the-fly adjustments as actors moved through the space or lights dimmed or brightened. 

My favorite lens and camera combo of the day (the camera won by default since it hosted the favorite lens) was the Fuji X-T3 coupled to the 56mm f1.2 APD lens. I tried to use it mostly at f2.5 but occasionally I weakened and gave into the lure of f4.0 with its promise of safety in the form of more depth of field. 

I kept the shutter speeds up around 1/125th and above to mitigate potential camera shake and, with this camera and lens combo, I was shooting around ISO 640-1250. 

When I got home and looked at the images I was very happy. Happier still that the play was so good and so immersive. Amber Quick is one of a small cast of adults in the play and she matched the kids for sense of humor, energy and sheer acting chops. 

Okay, the kid's play restored my interest, passion and delight in live theater. The adults are now on notice.