The Junior Musical Recital.
2 of my kids was asked to perform for this years Junior Musical Recital at their music school. Both of them would be playing the piano. Seeing this as an opportunity for me to further practice timing my shots, thinking about composition, and trying to learn more about my Nikon D70, I brought my camera to the occasion.
It was breezing cold in town and maybe that is why only a few went to the recital. Nevertheless, The kids were excited to perform their pieces. Most are really nervous. Some are even too shy to talk on the mic as you can barely understand what they're saying about the piece they would be performing but all is well.
The recital was inside the local mall. Of all the possible locations available, they decided to place the stage and the piano at the end part of the cinema alley where all sorts of lightings are available. Great! Another nightmare for the cameras' white balance settings. Neon lights are everywhere, not to mention the multiple fluorescent lights coming from the adjacent stores surrounding the alley. Still, I decided to put the D70 to auto white balance and hope that it wouldn't be that too bad. I used my 50mm f/1.8D lens so I can still get a good hand holdable shutter speed for my shots. I set the ISO of my camera to ISO 800 and again, Due to the multiple lighting sources, I already set my mind to convert my shots later to B&W.
Here are the shots I got. Before I forgot, I initially tried to determine who was the event organizer and asked her permission if I can take shots of the kids while they are performing. She agreed to the idea provided I give her a copy for the school. I happily obliged. I kept both the colored and the b&w versions so we'll see if she'll like both or the other. All images were taken using my Nikon D70 and a Nikon 50mm f/1.8D lens. Exposure is at ISO 800, f/2.0 @ 1/50 second.
First stop was this cute young cowgirl playing the guitar.
The next performer was the guitar duo of this teacher and his student.
The 3rd one was this happy girl who's going to play the piano. Here she is introducing the name of the piece she'd be playing.
Now, the 4th one was this young and very confident piano student.
The next one performing, the 5th one is this fine, young girl with a very nice voice and a good piano player. I was having a hard time with my focusing so pardon the blurriness of my main subject. It's a hit and miss for me on this occasion.
The 6th performer is this young lady. She has the most challenging piece of all. Here, she was playing together with her mentor as the piece is for a duet in piano. They needed the other piano teacher to help them out as their page turner. What a lovely page turner she is.
The 7th performer was this nice little kid. They all really tried to perform as good as they can sight-reading. I knew it was a big challenge for all of them besides the fact that they are performing in a crowd. Luckily, most of them performed flawlessly like her.
The next girl to perform was this little lady. Again, this was a duet in piano. The teacher was also the head event organizer. The piece was really nice though I forgot the name of the piano piece as I was busy trying to find the appropriate angle to get some good shots.
Here they are performing together on this next shot.
And of course, for every occasion like this, there will always be proud parents who wants to record all these nice memories of their kids.
This little girl was the 11th to perform for the recital. Her teacher was really very supportive as she sometimes forgot the notes to play. She was able to finish the piano piece in a good way.
Again, some more proud parents taking pictures and video recording the event.
This fine, young lady performed again with a definitely more challenging piece on her own. She finished playing it with flying colors.
As the event was nearing its final moment, I saw the head coordinator somehow hoping or should I say praying for thankfulness for the nice outcome of the whole recital.
There was still about 5 more kids to perform but the weather outside is really getting nasty so we decided to head home. Before I go, I talked to her and told her that I will be e-mailing the shots so she could see all of them. All in all, it was a nice day of shooting. I learned a lot again from the experience, and still, trying to learn more on how to take good photographs.
Thank you very much for looking at this post up to the end. :thumb
It was breezing cold in town and maybe that is why only a few went to the recital. Nevertheless, The kids were excited to perform their pieces. Most are really nervous. Some are even too shy to talk on the mic as you can barely understand what they're saying about the piece they would be performing but all is well.
The recital was inside the local mall. Of all the possible locations available, they decided to place the stage and the piano at the end part of the cinema alley where all sorts of lightings are available. Great! Another nightmare for the cameras' white balance settings. Neon lights are everywhere, not to mention the multiple fluorescent lights coming from the adjacent stores surrounding the alley. Still, I decided to put the D70 to auto white balance and hope that it wouldn't be that too bad. I used my 50mm f/1.8D lens so I can still get a good hand holdable shutter speed for my shots. I set the ISO of my camera to ISO 800 and again, Due to the multiple lighting sources, I already set my mind to convert my shots later to B&W.
Here are the shots I got. Before I forgot, I initially tried to determine who was the event organizer and asked her permission if I can take shots of the kids while they are performing. She agreed to the idea provided I give her a copy for the school. I happily obliged. I kept both the colored and the b&w versions so we'll see if she'll like both or the other. All images were taken using my Nikon D70 and a Nikon 50mm f/1.8D lens. Exposure is at ISO 800, f/2.0 @ 1/50 second.
First stop was this cute young cowgirl playing the guitar.
The next performer was the guitar duo of this teacher and his student.
The 3rd one was this happy girl who's going to play the piano. Here she is introducing the name of the piece she'd be playing.
Now, the 4th one was this young and very confident piano student.
The next one performing, the 5th one is this fine, young girl with a very nice voice and a good piano player. I was having a hard time with my focusing so pardon the blurriness of my main subject. It's a hit and miss for me on this occasion.
The 6th performer is this young lady. She has the most challenging piece of all. Here, she was playing together with her mentor as the piece is for a duet in piano. They needed the other piano teacher to help them out as their page turner. What a lovely page turner she is.
The 7th performer was this nice little kid. They all really tried to perform as good as they can sight-reading. I knew it was a big challenge for all of them besides the fact that they are performing in a crowd. Luckily, most of them performed flawlessly like her.
The next girl to perform was this little lady. Again, this was a duet in piano. The teacher was also the head event organizer. The piece was really nice though I forgot the name of the piano piece as I was busy trying to find the appropriate angle to get some good shots.
Here they are performing together on this next shot.
And of course, for every occasion like this, there will always be proud parents who wants to record all these nice memories of their kids.
This little girl was the 11th to perform for the recital. Her teacher was really very supportive as she sometimes forgot the notes to play. She was able to finish the piano piece in a good way.
Again, some more proud parents taking pictures and video recording the event.
This fine, young lady performed again with a definitely more challenging piece on her own. She finished playing it with flying colors.
As the event was nearing its final moment, I saw the head coordinator somehow hoping or should I say praying for thankfulness for the nice outcome of the whole recital.
There was still about 5 more kids to perform but the weather outside is really getting nasty so we decided to head home. Before I go, I talked to her and told her that I will be e-mailing the shots so she could see all of them. All in all, it was a nice day of shooting. I learned a lot again from the experience, and still, trying to learn more on how to take good photographs.
Thank you very much for looking at this post up to the end. :thumb
Sitting quietly, doing nothing. Spring comes and the grass grows by itself.
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Comments
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Here are some comments from me, and take them all with a grain of salt since I'm fairly amateur myself. As a note over the whole post, you just have a ton of pictures here, and when none of them are spectacular you might be less likely to get comments. We live in a world where people can download an entire, entertaining movie to their computer in minutes...to get someone to stop for a moment and truly appreciate what you've done as one minuscule artist in this vast universe, not only do you need to create something spectacular, but you need to present it in a way that guarantees attention.
Firstly, none of these shots are what I would call spectacular, but that's okay, we all have those days.
Many of these shots seems a little soft. Be mindful of your focus points and sharpen things up in processing a bit. You're also better off bumping your ISO up past 800 if it gets your shutter speed faster than 1/50 (1/60-80 should be your minimum, depending on how comfortable you are steadying your weapon of choice).
Lastly, on the bad notes, all of the shots are taken from an obvious human perspective. If I was to walk into this event, I could more than likely see through my eyes exactly what you've captured in the camera. This is fine for a very interesting scene that shows a moment in time, frozen in a fantastic frame for the ages, but if you're capturing the mundane or merely routine, you need to mix things up and show an event like this in a way that isn't often seen.
I think the last shot has a lot of good things about it. Emotion, and a story that you provide, along with being fundamentally correct for the most part. It may have been better to get a tighter frame around the teacher, but that's just me.
I hope I haven't embarrassed myself in these comments...but those are just my thoughts.
Yes, I definitely agree. None of these shots are spectacular. I was trying to get some good expressions from the face of the performing kids. For some reason, all of them are fixing their eyes sight-reading the piano pieces.
As for the ability to walk around the location, I wish it was that possible. Live and learn as what we normally hear others say and I couldn't agree more. In reality, I really learned a lot about what my Nikon D70 can and cannot do in low light with the 50mm f/1.8D lens attached than what I knew before. For me, that is a small achievement to be glad about. BTW, I also learned some good points from your comment and I thank you for that. Cheers.
http://imagesbyjirobau.blogspot.com/
I appreciate the actual response, as opposed to "Okay, I will do that." haha. Sometimes the shot just isn't there...but I think you definitely got something with the teacher at the end. If you're learning, you're doing the right thing, and a body with a 50mm f/1.8 is arguably one of the best learning experiences you can have.
Happy lightwriting my friend.