Theatre photography
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Photographing live theatre is one of my favorite things to do. Capturing dramatic moments makes for powerful images that not only tell a story, but give you quality archival photos of your show. Capturing performances in pictures provides you with raw material for advertising, support material for grant requests, and documentation of your production.
I have shot close to a hundred plays over the years, both on film and digitally. I have also done many posed photo shoots for publicity purposes. I have portable studio lighting for posted shots, or can shoot using your existing stage lighting.
If you are producing a play, it is important to get quality photos to the press as soon as possible. I recommend doing a posed photo shoot a few weeks prior to opening. Immediately prior to opening, at a dress rehearsal, is the best time to take peformance photos. All photos can usually be taken one day and available digitallly the next morning.
Process
The first step is contacting me to check availability. Let me know what type of photo shoot you are looking for, and when your ideal shoot dates are. Once we have settled on a photo shoot date, I will arrive with all the needed equipment about half an hour prior to the shoot to get set up.
I like to take a lot of pictures in order to make sure I capture some great images of your show. When shooting a performance, it's not uncommon to end up with several hundred photos. With live performance, where lighting is usually fairly dim or uneven (at least as a camera sees things), so it is inevitable that some pictures will have blurred action, or incorrect exposure of certain objects. Compensating for the slower exposures and lighting can be tricky, but by taking a lot of photos, we are guaranteed to get some good shots.
Once the photos are taken, you have some options. Ideally, I go through the images at my office, identifying some favorites, and deleting bad exposures and blurry images. I then can upload the images to a website where you can download them or provide you with a CD/DVD of the shots. If you are on a tight timeline, I am happy to bring a laptop and do a fast edit of photos after the shoot, but in these cases I am usually unable to thouroughly examine and retouch any photos as I would in the office.
Rates
My prices for services vary, but start at around $150 for a basic publicity shoot. This includes an hour or so of time at whatever location you choose. If outside of the Seattle area, there will be an additional travel charge. Production shots taken during a run start at $250, plus travel if outside of Seattle. I can also provide prints of photos for an additional $5 per 8.5" x 11" print.
