"James and the Giant Peach" - A Zach Theatre Production. Photographs from the dress rehearsal.

What a wild and off kilter weekend I had. It all started (as weekends do) on Saturday morning. In my calendar I had inked in a job to do dress rehearsal photographs for a new play at Zach Theatre. It was Roald Dahl's, "James and the Giant Peach".  The show was supposed to start at 11 a.m. so I went to the early swim workout; you know....just in case. 

I grabbed my photo gear and headed to the session. I walked in and the director asked me what I was doing there. Seems that I'd gotten an e-mail back on January 25th (to which I had, indeed, responded...) changing the day and the time of the dress rehearsal to Sunday at 2:15pm. So much for the pervasive myths about my infallibility....

As I headed back home I decided to call my ancient parents in San Antonio. My mom didn't sound good so I changed course and headed the car south onto IH-35. I won't belabor all the medical issues involved but I will say that from the time I got to my parent's home till late Saturday night I spent some quality time on the emergency number for a pulmonologist and I cooked a meatloaf and baked potatoes, and helped with eyedrops, and an errant oxygen machine.  Then I spent a largely sleepless night in a too warm house before going to a pharmacy at first light on Sunday morning for three prescriptions. Back home to cook breakfast and then arrange for a heightened level of in-home care for seniors. 

A new medical assessment gave me some emotional relief so I headed to the grocery store to lay in a bunch of healthy food for the parents and then raced back to Austin, just in time to buy some Valentine's Day stuff for my sweetie, grab the already packed bag of cameras, and head back over to the theatre. 

Yes, in the real world we artsy photographers also have to be emergency parental responders and caretakers. It's an interesting role; especially so for the borderline narcissist in most of us...

So, now we're back in Austin on Sunday early afternoon and we're actually shooting in the very first theater I worked in for Zach Theatre nearly 27 years ago. They call it the Kleberg Theater. One of three theaters on the Zach campus. 

I packed two lenses: The Nikon 24-120mm f4.0 and the Sigma 50mm Art lens and used them both. I put them each on a 24 megapixel, full frame, Nikon body, set both bodies at ISO 3200 and blazed away. I liked everything that came out of both cameras. It souped up nicely in post production and the noise was almost non-existent. 

I jumped straight into post processing when I got back home. I wanted to get it all nailed down by 7pm so I could make a couple of ham, gruyere and carmelized onion pizzas and also open a nice bottle of champagne to celebrate Valentine's Day with the CFO of the VSL. And Studio Dog. (Studio Dog was clearly miffed that I had not alerted her to my Saturday schedule change!!!). 

The small theater is so much more intimate than the big, Topfer Stage. I could get  within a couple of feet from the cast and shoot with much wider lenses, which is so much more immersive!!!!! I loved it. It was a fun experience after so much theater production shooting from mid-way up the house, dead center, in the giant theater. More like this, please! 

I always think of myself as a medium telephoto proponent but I have to say that the images l liked best from this (astoundingly excellent) production were the ones where I was so close I felt as though I was part of the cast. Wide angle all the way. In context, the 50mm felt long in this venue. 

I got up early this Monday morning, brushed my teeth and brushed away the effects of too much Champagne the night before. Then I grabbed a coffee and headed out on assignment. I was gone by 7 a.m. Off to photograph at St. Gabriel's Catholic School, where I had my first break-in sessions with the Sigma 24-35mm f2.0 ART lens. I may never take it off one of the big Nikon bodies. It's amazing. But more about that after I post process all the school files on Thurs. Till then I can just say that everything I saw on the back panel reviews exceeded my expectations and seemed to deliver the ultimate in spirited nano-acuity. I am tired but looking forward at two more long days of photographing at the school. 

Hope your week is off to a great start and you celebrated a romantic and happy Valentine's Day. Good times....

Remember, you can click on the images to see them bigger. 

A link to my Studio Portrait Lighting Class with $25 Off.

Food Photography. by Andrew Scriviani

Off Camera Flash Photography. by Neil van Niekirk

One of the original Craftsy Photo Classes and 

still one of the best! 

Night Photography. by Lance Keimig

I met Lance a couple of weeks ago in Denver

and found him to be really fun and knowledgeable 

this class reflects what he teaches in hands-on

workshops in Ireland and Iceland, as well as 

cool places around the U.S.

Narrative Photography: Storytelling with Photo

Essays. by Mike Hill.

How to make what we shoot into a cohesive

train of visual thought.

Packing for a three day shoot next week, but, "no pressure," it's here in town.

I have no intention to stop writing the blog. 

Sorry if that seemed to be implied in this morning's post.

A year and a half ago I did a bunch of photography for a wonderfully school here in my area of town called, St. Gabriel's Catholic school. Here is the website and most of the photographs on it came from that shoot. I got an e-mail last week asking me if I had any time in the very near future to come back and do some more shooting. It seems that they've expanded the campus and finished up some very nice additions to their already very first class facilities. We'll be making photographs of the students but this time we'll also be working on photographing the students in the context of the architecture. I was able to offer them Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of next week.

It's kind of a dream assignment because the school is in a very affluent area, is well served by the parents, and is in a beautiful location in the hill country, to the west of downtown. The children are wonderful and the staff of the school uses our work well. The one difference this year is that some of the images we create will be printed quite large (think wall sized) and used as display art around the school. In the past the kids were the single most important part of all the photography; in this instance it will be a mix of people and interior design.

We have three days of photography scheduled and, since the additions are new to me, I asked if I could come out and scout. We did that on Weds. The new interiors are very well done. They are modern and open, with very "of the moment" furniture design and lighting fixtures. I'll be spending three full days there so I am also happy to report that the cafeteria food at this school is also well above average. 

With all the basic logistics figured out I sat down this morning to figure out the fun stuff: What to use as camera gear on the job. So, finally, a need for big files. Mostly available lighting, supplemented occasionally  by small flashes. A need for wide dynamic range and great low light performance as well as fast, sure focusing. And a lot of the shooting is dynamic and will be handheld. 

What's my plan?

The Nikon D750 is the perfect combination of features and performance. The D810 is better on paper but since I'll be doing a lot of handholding the extra pixels are sure to get lost in the kinetic mix. To move fast I'll use two D750's, set identically, but with a different lens on each camera. Just for grins I'll put a quick release plate on each body and bring a big, wooden monopod with me to provide a stable platform.  The small flashes are a no brainer and I won't waste time talking about them.

That leaves a selection of lenses. The fun stuff. The lenses are the singular part of every shoot that makes a bigger difference than the number of pixels on the sensor, or the brand on the front of the camera. I decided that this would be the perfect job for a two lens set up, complimented by a few bonus optics on standby, in the bag. 

First up, a wide angle solution. Hmmm. Research, research.... I narrowed down my choices and decided to go with the Sigma 24-35mm f2.0 Art lens. Not a very wide selection of focal lengths but all focal lengths that I use often and understand well. I rarely go wider than 24mm and by the time I crest 35mm I'm really ready to just move on and grab a 50mm. The 24-35mm is big and heavy but one stop down from wide open it's probably sharper than anything I've shot with since the old Leica days.

I put the lens on both camera bodies and made sure (with a LensAlign tool) that we didn't need to do any radical micro-adjusting to get a really sharp image and then I used the Visual Science Lab electron microscope to look at the latent photonics test image on the sensor to evaluate the combination's nano-acuity.  The melange passed with flying colors. Much sharper and higher performance than the Zeiss Otus 24-35mm Ostrich lens. Oh, that's right, they don't have a high speed, wide angle zoom... 

It seemed obvious to me that a perfect complement to the Sigma 24-35mm f2.0 Art lens would be the 50mm 1.4 Art lens. I just happened to have a copy which I just happened to have calibrated on both cameras yesterday evening, before dinner, so I dropped that into the bag as well. 

At that point I was seriously wishing Sigma would hurry up and introduce their 85mm f1.4 Art lens to round out the trinity of what should be every working photographers most used trio of optics but that hasn't happened yet. I'll put the Nikon 85mm f1.8 G on the camera and be pretty happy with the combination. But I'll keep my checkbook handy should those rascals over at Sigma get motivated...

The working combo is (at least starting out) going to be the wide zoom on one body and the 85mm on the other with the 50mm 1.4 Art and the Nikon 24-120mm f4.0 zoom in the bag. The 50mm because everyone should always try to use their 50mm for whatever they can, as God and HCB intended; and the 24-120mm for those times when image stabilization is just flat out highly recommended.

Since I'll be moving from class to class, and from building to playground to gym and back to the cafeteria, for six or eight hours a day for three days in a row, the other important consideration is to wear good walking shoes. And since the boys wear coats and ties to class I think I'll go with the sartorial flow and do so as well. That makes my shoe selection the Timberland Oxford classics. in cordovan. 

Now, how to pack? Hmmm. Seems like a situation for an Airport Security roller case from Think Tank. 

The icing on the cake? The school provides really good coffee to faculty, staff and photographers all day long. Seems like a good way to spend the better half of a week. We'll see how the gear selection survives initial contact with the assignment.