The drama is back.

I am back at one of my favorite freelance clients, The Washington College Drama Department, to photograph another semester of productions. Last night kicked off the semester with "My Name is Rachel Corrie," a play about a peace activist name Rachel Corrie who was killed in 2003 by an Israeli bulldozer that was trying to knock down a Palestinian home. I always enjoy shooting the productions; these kids can really act, even if the light is usually challenging.

You see the college has just begun remodeling Tawes Theater, where the Drama Department usually stages its plays. It will be closed for two years while they completely redo it. Shooting plays in Tawes or plays in general is a challenge in itself because of the constant changing of the lighting, but at least it was on a stage with decent stage lighting most of the time. I always had shot them with available light, and they looked pretty good considering it was usually high ISO stuff, shot at a very slow shutter speed, wide open at 2.8. Last semester, the kids were doing plays all around campus and could not make full use of the lights like they could in a theater. This forced me to start using flash.

Last semester, it was mostly on camera, bouncing it when I could. Not ideal, but it worked. This year, they are doing some of the plays in a smaller theater on campus. It has some lights, but is still kind of dark. So last night, I decided to bring some big guns, my Dyna-Lite Uni Jr 400's - man, they are great lights. I was excited to be able to shoot at a decent ISO like 400. I even could shoot at ISO 200 if I wanted to use full power. It was nice to use a good f-stop and shutter speed.

I got there nice and early to set up. Just when I started to unpack the lights it hit me - I forgot that when these lights run off AC power, they beep every time they flash. I usually run these off of batteries when shooting sports and they do not beep. I did not bring the batteries and thought I was screwed. I asked the director and the actors, and to their credit, they said it would not bother them.

In the end, the shots turned out great. I shot at 400 ISO, F4.5 with a shutter speed of 125th and it was great. I will bring my batteries next time, so no beeps.

BTW, I shoot dress rehearsals, so as not to disturb an actual performance. I could never get away with this at a live show. Heck, I tried shooting a live show one-time with stage light and my Nikon d2h was so loud that every time I hit the shutter, everyone looked at me and I was asked to leave at intermission. Ah, the theater.