JAMES CRAIG PHOTOGRAPHY

b&w images • blog • project journal

(placeholder)

Two from the Twilight Zone – or Moonshine Autumn Bellydance Gala

Sep 7, 2021

Work on images from this event makes me feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone, for a couple of reasons. The lighting, solid unrelenting blue, magenta, green, Orange or Yellow light – depending on the dancer, created an other-world nightmare for converting to b&w. Second, figuring out how to approach the exposures took me into places I’ve never been and into the very early hours. Heck, at one point, I stomped our of my studio, laughing hysterically, telling Nan that there would be NOT ONE b&w from this event. A cup of fresh ground coffee and I was back at it. Too many of my catches were just too good to give up on without a fight.

The first lighting I tackled, for the umpteenth time, was the blue. Here April was just beginning her performance. The eye doesn’t rebel against strong singular blue lighting like the camera does. I liked the scene that I captured, and I think I retained the essence in my image, if not anything resembling the reality. That proved impossible. Of course, when I eliminated the blue light, the backdrop went balck, leaving everything else very underexposed – but eke-able (if that’s a thing). There may be a couple of more to drag kicking and screaming “out of the blue” – I hope I can remember what all the heck I did.

The second scene was lit in nothing but orange light – probably the easiest – I said easiest, not easy – of the solid color lighting to work with in b&w. Someone who was there might actually be able to be convinced that the image just might be from the same show. It’s my favorite of the evening, showing Havre de Grace’s own April Monique and the lovely, if taaaall, Naimah Loren. They did a really fun number together.

I added them to the folio HERE, at least temporarily.

The expanded bellydance events at the Opera House are showing great promise. They’ve moved onto the stage – the Black Box room could no longer hold the audience the events draw. They are definitely a lot of fun – but darn, I gotta get a lighter camera. Except most of the weight comes from that darn 50-140 f2.8 lens I use for these – it’s my low-light to no-light lens.