Photographing the arts: Different Spaces—wide angles for close quarters
In a previous essay I was talking about the difficulty of going into unfamiliar venues, and working out how to know what lenses might be needed to reach a performer on stage over a great distance. This time, I wanted to look at the opposite issue—how to work with a large production, in a small space.
When there isn’t going to be room to back up very far—if the seating in the venue is right at the front edge of the stage, for example—an ultra-wide angle lens is what’s going to be needed to get the full scale of a very wide or tall set, which can be useful for both publicity/marketing of the production (especially if it’s a particularly ambitious show in terms of scale), and later on for designers’ portfolios as well.
But that can create other issues, even as it’s solving one problem. Wide angles are great, but the distortions that come with the most extreme lenses mean you may need to be more cautious in terms of positioning yourself and the camera, and also correcting the images later in post-production. Here’s a few of the features of ultra-wide angle lenses:
Creating Space
Wide angle lenses tend to enhance or exaggerate the amount of space between actors on stage, both in terms of how far they seem from each other on opposite sides of the set, but also in terms of scale; whatever is closest to the lens can seem very large, while a performer at the back of the stage will seem tiny and distant in comparison.
This can also be used to your advantage—in the right circumstances, differences of scale can reveal power dynamics, in an on-stage relationship.
Image: Catherine Văn-Davies and Gus Murray in Angels in America at the Old Fitz Theatre, directed by Dino Dimitriadis.
Showing the environment
Being close to the stage on a wide angle can also mean you wind up seeing more of the surroundings than you might want, in terms of looking both into the wings and up into the lighting grid, which can then lead to lens flare as well.
Depending on the production, this might work, though—some shows have quite immersive environments, where the sides of the stage are part of the design.
Image: Stefanie Caccamo and the cast of Once: The Musical at Darlinghurst Theatre Company, directed by Richard Carroll.
Converging Vertical Lines
Very wide lenses will also tend to make the angle of the camera much more obvious, by introducing converging vertical lines if you’re pointed slightly up or down. That can be corrected later, but it can also lead to performers looking stretched in odd ways in order to correct their surroundings.
It can be useful to have extra space available outside the image you actually want, though, specifically to give more cropping options later.
Image: The cast of A Chorus Line at Darlinghurst Theatre Company, directed by Amy Campbell.
Fortunately, recently mirrorless cameras have introduced the ability to have a level on-screen in the viewfinder while you’re photographing, so you can often solve at least part of that problem on the go. I definitely recommend switching that feature on, and get used to quickly checking that as you go!
In terms of working out what lens you might need for a certain venue & show, my previous suggestions still apply, to an extent—finding a floor plan of the theatre will always help, but an overhead may not tell you whether the seats are raised and the stage is flat, or vice versa. You could work out the angle of view of your lens using an online calculator—my 8-16mm lens on a Fuji X-Series body has about a 112° view angle at its widest setting, for example—and apply that to the floor plan, to work out if it covers the stage area from where you want to be photographing the stage.
Usually my solution is just to have my widest lens on hand, and then work out how far back I can get in the venue without either being on too much of an angle to the stage to be looking straight at the performers, or seeing the front row of seats in the corners of the image.
A couple of venues I work in regularly are good examples of what I mean, here—the Eternity Playhouse, home of Darlinghurst Theatre Company, has curved rows of seating that start right at the front of the stage, and rise up from there—you can see what I mean on the floor plan and side view diagrams from their website. So the trick is always how to get the full width of the set in frame, plus performers who are moving forward quite close to the audience, without seeing those empty corner seats. The stage is 12m wide according to the plans, so on my 8mm lens I need to be 4m from the stage to cover the full width (according to the field of view calculator—and confirmed by photos I’ve taken in there!).
It’s a similar situation at the Old Fitz Theatre as well—a considerably smaller space (about 85 seats, compared to 200 in the Eternity Playhouse), it has the advantage of a central aisle in the middle of two seating banks, directly in front of the stage; but, that’s also an entrance for actors a lot of the time, so it pays to be cautious about standing there for too long in a rehearsal! There are also often lights placed above the aisle, so a tall photographer like me can sometimes find their own shadow is being cast onto stage; fortunately the extra warmth on the back of my head usually alerts me to that before it becomes too big a problem.
The angled seating blocks on either side often creep into the corners of my frame, though—much like the curved ones do at DTC. So, depending how far forward the set comes, I may spend a bit of time trying to find an angle that lines up nicely to keep those out of view; or, at very least, I’ll hide them with an actor if I can!
Overall, the best approach is the most flexible one, as always. I stay on my feet, constantly moving over the course of a rehearsal, and when the moment comes for a wider view I’ll adapt my position to suit that, then go back to a longer lens and capture the same scene from different viewpoints, and/or different lens lengths, for a different look at the same scene.
Have a look at these images, from Angels In America at the Old Fitz—these were taken over the course of three minutes, during a single scene, without my moving very far at all. I went from a 10mm ultra-wide view, to a 28mm, to a 50mm; and just see what that does to the perspective of the images. In the first one, Prior Walter (Ben Gerrard) seems to be some distance away, isolated from the rest of the cast; in the second frame he’s in front of them, but the distance doesn't seem as far; and by the third one seems like they’re just over his shoulder, pulled closer towards him. The actors didn’t move, but I did—and, with a quick zoom, I was able to completely change the camera’s perspective of the scene.
Having an ultra-wide angle lens available means I can switch from a tight portrait to a full view of the set, without having to change my position in the theatre. It might not sound like much, but jumping over rows of seats to get a few metres further from the stage is difficult, and going out to an aisle to climb flights of stairs takes time—by which point the moment you were after may have shifted on stage, but also my height relative to the actors on stage may have changed as well.
And that’s really the aim, here—to have as many options available as possible, in the time available. (Granted, Angels In America gave me more time than most plays do—but, still…!) Options like these are important in a couple of ways—for one thing, having a range of points of view means that when the marketing & publicity team decide to post a gallery of the show, they’ve got a variety of looks across the selection of images. Photos from a static point of view make the show itself seem static.
Different framings are useful for different people, too—the first image gives plenty of room for text to be dropped in, either quotes from reviewers for social media, or perhaps an interview with the director in a magazine; the second is a great showcase for the costume designer; and the third, being fairly tight on Ben Gerrard as Prior Walter, could go with reviews where they talk about his performance.
But there’s also a shift in meaning that comes with each framing, I think. The first photo is a good representation of the moment Prior arrives in Heaven, and is a bit lost in the void of these new surroundings. In the second, he’s trying to reason with this large panel of supernatural beings he’s been confronted with. By the third image, he’s much more hemmed in by them—there’s no space left for him to escape to in the frame, he’s entirely closed in.
Now, any one of these are valid interpretations of how the scene progresses, and indeed, they’re all accurate representations of how it looked on stage. The question then is: which one is closest to how the scene feels?
Go back and look at the first image in this post, where Harper (Catherine Văn-Davies) is completely dwarfed in the framing of the image by her husband, Joe Pitt (Gus Murray). This is from her first scene, in Millennium Approaches, rather than later on in Perestroika where she starts to find her inner strength. Is that framing—and lens choice—a good representation of the dynamic between the two characters, at that particular point in the show? Would I frame them differently later, when their relationship is different?
That might be a discussion to have with the director; but, if I don’t come back with a range options to choose from, then we’re limited to using whatever my first reaction was, or whatever I saw from where I was standing when the scene started—which might not match the tone, or intent, of the scene.
Lens choice is just one of the elements of photography that I’ve got control of when I’m photographing a show; but it can have such a big impact on the feeling, and the meaning, of the images.