With record* low lev­els in Percy Priest, there were hun­dreds more yards of shore­line to explore in Decem­ber 2015. These were taken with that same won­der­ful bulk roll of T-Max 400, long expired. I’ve been pulling rolls off of this for three years now — I’m likely get­ting close to the end, and it’s been great to put this film to use some twenty-five years after it was orig­i­nally intended to be processed.

 

 

*Who is going to look it up to fact check?

I was for­tu­nate to be the Sideshow Fringe Fes­ti­val 2015 pho­tog­ra­pher, and as always there were many incred­i­ble ses­sions of the­ater, aeri­al­ists, pup­pets, and music. There are many, many, many tac­tics one can uti­lize when pho­tograph­ing per­for­mances. Long expo­sures, high-ISO cap­tures, processed images to high­light the per­former — all are good options. Another option on engag­ing the sub­ject: shoot once, process none. Shoot film, process, and take what develops.

In addi­tion to the actual live per­for­mances, I was also invited to check out some rehearsals, includ­ing the work of the FALL com­pany. It was pretty incred­i­ble to lis­ten in and hear some of their process as they rehearsed through the work, and to try and unob­tru­sively cap­ture some of the dis­cus­sions in pho­tos. Below are three of those images next to one of the per­form­ers dur­ing the rehearsal set.

Giv­ing up some con­trol with the medium lets me work in the avail­able light­ing and motion with­out stress­ing over the upcom­ing post-processing. A chance to pho­to­graph the mood and ambi­ence in the unpol­ished envi­ron­ment. A bit of a looser, yet more focused, feel­ing from the per­form­ers seems to come out in rehearsals. When the dancers are con­tin­u­ing the com­mit­ment of their work to mus­cle mem­ory it’s almost like a photo cri­tique. Peo­ple are look­ing for input, look­ing for encour­age­ment, but also any­thing that helps rise the level of the work is welcome.

Many thanks to FALL for allow­ing me to shoot the rehearsals!