This is a simple post to explain why the people are usually blurry inmy lighting photographs. As an illustration, I took three photos of a speaker on stage, using different exposure times. An exposure time of 1/40 second produces a sharp speaker, but an overally ugly picture because of the noise in the image. Look at the graininess that is visible in the full-size image. Exposure time 1/15 second: Exposure time 1/5 second: At 1/5 second the noise is gone, but now the exposure is so long that the speaker moves during the exposure, producing the “halo” effect. Since my goal in taking these picture is to showcase the lighting, I use a longer exposure to capture the darker parts of the image, and I live with the fuzzy people. Another option is to get a more expensive camera with a more sensitive sensor and a broader range of apertures (my camera only supports two).

This weekend, two songs started with a solo vocalist.  I used the front lights to highlight the solos and provide a transition when the rest of the singers and the band joined in. In the following song, the female vocalist at stage left leads the song, so I highlighted her for the first look by dimming the front lights on the rest of the band and singers. I then brought up front lights on the other singers and band members. I did the same thing for this song, but with a different lead vocalist. And three more songs… We did one cool thing that I didn’t photograph.  We have six pars on the ceiling throughout the auditorium that light the walls.  With blue gels, we used them as “house lights” while communion was being served.

Challenges for this week: The set has been the same for over a month, so I had to come up with something to distinguish it from previous weeks. In addition, a couple of weeks ago our four Trackspots were transferred to another venue, leaving us with two Studiospots as the only intelligent lights. We have two more that have been backstage awaiting repairs for months. I’d like to see them back up and running, but we are a church, and if we’re using our budget to help poor people instead of fixing our lights, I’m okay with that. The first look is the one I used before the band went onstage. The next look was used when the band started playing an instrumental intro to the first song. The center screen showed an eye-candy video while the side screen showed announcements. Both Studiospots were set to white, with open gobo and a random effect so that their beams moved around the front of stage. Here they are shown hitting the drummer and guitar player. The first song was a continuation of the intro, so I used the same colors but brought up the front lights.  I used the red lights on the backdrop, and blue lights on the truss, to provide transitions in this song.  I was saving the movers for a later song… I used a totally different color to distinguish the next song, with two different looks. It was a cool day outside, so the air conditioner wasn’t running much and the haze hung in the air beautifully. I used the Lava gobo with a very slow rotation in the two Studiospots for this song. To provide transitions within the song, I moved the lights from the lead singer, to the backdrop, to the guitarist/drummer for a solo, and back to the singer. It doesn’t show up that well in the photos, but it was a nice effect. For the finale, I lit up the truss in the back. I used two basic looks (with the fixed lights) for the final song. The band continued to play an instrumental version while the audience greeted one another, so I dimmed the front lights for the third look. It doesn’t show up in the pictures, but I used the studiospots to hit the white draped fabric with a subtle rotating gobo effect. I like using the gobos on irregular surfaces where you can’t tell that it has a cheesy shape. Announcements and message. For the announcements, I pointed the studiospots across the stage to illuminate the backdrop with a deep blue/purple gobo. During most of the service, the stage is too brightly lit to achieve these highly saturated colors.

I’m working on a new and improved theme for the lighting page.  It’s still a bit rough because I don’t have time to finish it today, but I think it looks promising!

Nothing too exciting this weekend in the lighting department. In a change from last time, two Studiospots were flown from a pipe just in front of the stage. I don’t think they’re real useful in that position because they’re too close to the stage to really light a person, and we normally don’t use enough haze to make the beams really visible. I used them to create patterns on the white backdrop, but you can’t see them very well in this picture. We did manage to get some good coordination between the lighting colors and the the background graphics. Here’s another example of how the camera changes the look of the colors. In this case, the  camera has increased its sensitivity to capture the darker portions of the image, which caused the blue and amber lights on the backdrop to appear much more intense than they actually were. In reality, they were light pastel colors. I need to experiment with my camera to find out if one of the metering modes will improve this.

I’m of the lighting operators/designers at Discovery Church in Orlando, FL. I’ve been doing lighting, off and on, since 2002. Unfortunately I didn’t get a digital camera until November 2006 so I don’t have much of a record of the early years. Now I’m trying to photograph everything I work on. It’s partly to help myself improve as a lighting designer, partly for fun, and hopefully somebody else benfits too.  I do try the occasional  “artistic” shot, but primarily I’m concerned with documenting the look rather than taking the perfect photo.  Thus, the performers tend to be blurry because I’m using a long exposure (and no flash, of course) to capture the whole stage.