I would have invited you all, but I didn't know I was going myself until I got there.

I lucked up on a traditional Japanese dance group putting on its annual recital at our local community center. I already had all my gear with me since I was there for something else, so I went in, cased the joint, and decided to stay and shoot. The lady at the reception desk said it was fine to use flash, so I hauled out my light stand, remote triggers, etc. and had a blast for about three hours.

I was able to get enough flash onto the stage to allow me to shoot f4 on everything. That was perfect because with the Takumars anything smaller than that would have required me to open up, focus, then close down again....by which time I'd be out of focus.

I shot everything with the S-M-C Takumar 105/2.8 and the SMC Takumar 55/1.8, swapping out probably a couple dozen times. Good thing I have lots of practice at it. I believe all the photos posted here were from the 105/2.8







The little feller is two years old and was supposed to dance around as a bunny rabbit while all the other kids danced in kimono, but he got stage fright, poor little tyke.

[Sailor]

Gee Mike, the composition and post processing are really something. Man, I wish I could do that!

Jer

[Marc Langille]

Great images Mike! I love the lighting you've done - excellent work. Perhaps some day I'll go to the motherland of camera design and manufacturing....

[Mike Cash]

Thanks very much. The lighting consisted of the house lights in the performance hall backed up by a plain jane Vivitar 2500 on a stand about 25 feet away and set on the longest reach auto mode, triggered by eBay Chinese radio triggers. Having about 60 degrees of separation between me and the flash solved the problem of the performers' shadows hitting stage props, while the overhead stage lights took care of the floor portion of the flash shadow. All this is in retrospect, please understand. When I went there I just set the thing up the first place it came handy and I wouldn't have to worry about it getting knocked over or blocking anyone's view.

Sailor, anything I can do, anyone else can do as well. The composition was pure luck, and this batch of photos received less processing than almost anything I've ever taken. Any specific aspect of the post-processing, such as the silver gelatin toning for example, ask and I'll be glad to help where I can. Everything I do is basic and falling-off-a-log simple stuff with free tools.