Chinese Opera

As a photojournalist, I get to cover all kinds of events. Recently I was asked to get some pictures from a Chinese Opera in town. My editor said he'd really like some performance images, but that cameras were forbidden in the theater. He said I ought to go early and get some backstage images.

So I did.

I've never been to a Chinese Opera before, and had a great time goofing around with the performers backstage. I met performers, makeup artists, and wardrobe specialists, who were all more than happy to have me hang around and take pictures.

At one point, I hadn't noticed as one of the performers headed down a long hallway backstage by himself. I was busy photographing a performer having her makeup done, when I heard a loud, sharp yell. I jumped! When I turned toward the source of the scream, the performer down the hall looked at me in surprise, then doubled over in laughter. I then realized he was just warming up his voice, and the yell was part of his usual pre-show routine. He got a kick out of my reaction. As soon as my heart restarted, I laughed, too.

You see above an image from the performance, despite the earlier ban on cameras. Turns out, as I suspected, they didn't mind pictures. They just found the flash distracting, natch. So when I promised to go flashless, with a smile, I got the green light.

Suited me just fine, really. Why would I want to blot out the artistry of a professional theater light person with my flash? I just cranked up the ISO, opened the aperture up to 2.8, made sure VR was on, and got plenty of good frames.

The key to getting clear, low-light images is to make sure to set the ISO high enough. I once made the mistake of thinking it'd be best to use a lower ISO. You know, because the lower the ISO, the lower the digital noise, right? I figured I could always boost the exposure in Photoshop later, and get a good image. Wrong. Turns out, an underexposed image shot in low light looks like mud when you try that boost-the-exposure trick. The mud is especially mucky in the darker areas of the frame. I had outsmarted myself right out of some clean images. So for this job I used the correct stratosphere-level ISO and they came out nice and clear, no surprise.

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