A Walk Around the Room

It is very easy to get chained to a spot when shooting something. For me, it is hard to set my camera bag somewhere, then take off without it. I usually wish I had a different lens or something, or I'm afraid that something will disappear.

Sooo.. I try very hard to look for different vantage points for any given subject.

In this case, I was shooting in Terrell's Performing Arts Center, which is a really nice venue to shoot in. This is especially the case if you can roam around a little bit to look for better spots to shoot from, which is easy when the event is a talent show try-out. No crowd, no stress, and fun light.

For a few performers, I was sitting out front switching between the 24-70mm for wide shots and the 70-200mm to get up close and personal.

Bored with that, I just left on the 70-200 and went for a walk. The results made me happy, so I thought I would share.

From the back of the stage, I could show the talented young lady at the piano with the empty hall as background, as well as the scattered judges and contestents in the seats.

I liked it, but wanted a closer shot too, and I noticed that I could line the subject up with the aisle for a clean background.... I liked it better than the first attempt.

Walking around, I saw that her face could be framed in the open piano. From here though, the microphone is in the way, the flag is distracting and there is an unfortunate shadow on her face.

Lower, the microphone still intrudes, but I like the overall effect of showing her feet under the piano, and luckily she moved out of the shadow.

Now it was time to go back out front. The tech folks were using a nice textured purple background light, which should not be wasted. What a nice surprise though to see that light was shining into the piano enough to get a really neat reflection in the raised lid, showing the inner workings. With the subject lit nicely against the uncluttered background... and lucky me that her song was long enough for me to make it around the room.

Sooooo... walk around the room, look for possibilities, and take advantage of unique angles.

Happy Shooting out there,

Don J.