Once in a while, an image comes along that doesn't fit my usual ideals, but still works, and suits the show. This one - of Irish company Pan Pan's production The Rehearsal, Playing The Dane - was a matter of being ready for the unexpected...
Read MoreThe work I've been doing recently with Apocalypse Theatre and Pinchgut Opera got me thinking about what I try to achieve in production stills photography; so I thought I'd have a look at a show that epitomises my favourite kind of images from this sort of work - New Theatre of Riga's production, The Sound Of Silence, which I photographed for the New Zealand International Arts Festival in 2010...
Read MoreToday's images are brought to you by the letter T: first, Tuwhare, the concert tribute to the great New Zealand poet Hone Tuwhare. Following on from Baxter in the 2000 Festival, songwriters were invited to create a new work using one of Tuwhare's poems, and an album and concert were created from those.
Read MoreFour shows today - first is Cookin' (Nanta), which apparently is the most popular show in Korea and toured to Broadway just before it came to New Zealand! I remember enjoying it, but also that I had no idea the cook in the fourth photo was going to throw that onion in the air and chop it - much less that it was stuffed with glitter...!
Read MoreA mix of boxing, Shakespeare and dance, today - first a 2006 show, Aarero Stone, featuring Carol Brown and Charles Koroneho at Soundings Theatre in Te Papa. I actually photographed this one over a couple of days' rehearsals as it came together towards opening night - which often happens - but it still stands out in my head for the images that came out of it, this many years later.
Read MoreFour different shows today - first up is Super Vision, with Harry Sinclair from the Front Lawn. To be honest, when I heard he was in Wellington doing a show at the same time Don McGlashan was playing at the Festival Club, I kinda hoped...well, you know. Never happened, though!
Read MoreThree shows today - well, actually, four really! From 2004 we've got both Gilberto Gil at the Events Centre, and a late-night set at the Festival Club (but I'm not sure who the band was that night, I was flying past on my way to the car ten years ago!).
Read MoreTwo shows from the same year (and the same day), today - plus a bonus photo of lovely Vi Blackburn, who has been ushering and selling programmes around Wellington for as long as anyone can remember. This is possibly the first photo I got of her in action, but I always tried to track her down at some point during each Festival.
Read MoreI should probably point out that, in doing these 'history' blogs, I'm obviously skipping over huge swaths of material. Given that each of the five Festivals I photographed represents some 30,000 images (yes, EACH) it's hard to go back through and pick, say, 20 to represent a day in the life. So, sometimes I'm picking a show I liked, or one that photographed particularly well; or just one where I think the images weren't seen by many people at the time, for whatever reason.
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