This week I lit a little ballet called the Carnival of the Animals. The music is by Camille Saint-Saens. Our production was aimed mostly at families with small children and had a very playful nature about it. The context for our program was a group of kids who stumbled upon a rundown circus. An old woman, the proprietor of the circus and her companion, a juggler, magically transform into a circus master and dancing bear. Through the use of puppets, each variation of animals is introduced to the children. It was a charming collection of dances, and the use of puppets made it all the more intriguing to a young audience.

Photographing dance is always a bit of a challenge. Since the light levels are often low, I have to use a high ISO to freeze the motion of the dancers. This often leads to noisy images. I can compensate somewhat by using noise reduction software. Most of my images were shot at f4 and between 1/500 and 1/1000 at ISO 6,400. When I shoot productions for archival use, I generally only create jpg files. RAW files are much too large for the quantity of images I make, about 1,500- 2,000 per show. I lose a lot of latitude in file manipulation by only shooting in jpg, but that is currently my only option. These archival images are only intended for use by students who work on the production for their personal use in portfolios and such. Not having a RAW capture works satisfactorily for this purpose.

Ballet, and any dance for that matter, is a wonderful medium to work in both as a lighting designer and as a photographer. From a lighting designer perspective, nothing compares to illuminating the human body in space. The human form comes to life in an abstract manner. An early pioneer in stage lighting, Jean Rosenthal once said, "Dancers live in light as fish live in water". There is much truth to that reality. For the photographer, there is a great challenge to capture each dance movement at the peak of its execution. There is almost a Zen-like quality of capturing a dancer suspended in space, or in light, for that matter. I often shoot in burst mode to capture a series of movements. Sometimes it's the take off that has greater power, sometimes the peak of flight, and sometimes it's the landing that has the most appeal. Without the burst mode I wouldn't have the opportunity to compare various moments of the dance.

The wonder of live theatre for me is capturing the magic of the imagination; to create drama, ask questions, and seek answers. The world of dance provides the opportunity to blend together the power of drama with the beauty of human movement. Such was my experience with the Carnival of the Animals this week.