This past Saturday was the CUMS May Week Concert in King’s College Chapel with Ben Glassberg and Stephen Cleobury conducting. Before lunch the orchestra had its rehearsal and I was there to photograph. It was an early morning, but well worth it.
This is one of my favourite shots from the morning, the little kid and his mom pointing and talking about the orchestra playing. I wanted the focus on them in the doorway so darkened the left side of the photo a bit. Looking at this photo again in the morning, it looks a bit dark, and I wonder to what extent the light environment in my living room matters, when I edit the photos. Would the photo have been brighter if I had edited it in daylight instead, by virtue of my surrounding being brighter?King’s College Chapel is a magnificent venue. Here I had to step back to capture a bit of the grandeur. The lights on the orchestra and the lights from the outside were different colour, and I struggled a bit with the white balance. In the end I decided to make it black and white to avoid greenish walls in the chapel.When photographing a playing orchestra it is difficult to get in close to the people in the centre. This is one of the musicians on the right side. I increased the contrast and darkened the photo to enhance the shadows and remove other elements from the photo.Ben is getting ready to conduct the second half of the May Week concert. The text was a bit fuzzy so I took the creative liberty to enhance it a bit so you could read what a conductor has on his list before a concert.
There was the odd clue that there were some tricky passages in the music sheets. This photo was taken during the break. I like the expression and the fact that you can read what music he is playing.This is a composite of two photos. I took one portrait photo and one landscape photo and there were pieces of both that I wanted to have in the final image, unfortunately I was missing some parts, which is where the texture comes in. You need to see this in high resolution to see Ben’s gesture (click image).I think I have mentioned it before, but someone told me that King’s Chapel has floor heating. Need to try it out some day…It was quite entertaining to watch Ben conduct, he was very animated and cracking jokes. The conductors are like wizards from Harry Potter waving their wands around weaving music and magic. “Audite!”Different pieces evoked different facial expressions. Here a lighter piece, and I am trying to capture some happy, laughing musicians.I have a tendency to hold my camera at an angle. I tried straightening this shot in post processing, but actually liked it better with the angle, so left it like that.This was Karys Orman’s last concert, she has been my music society point of contact.One last shot before I am out the door and heading to the May Bumps.
Been listening to Elgar while I edited these photos, it seemed only fitting. That’s it for tonight, it was a good rehearsal I hope some of you had the chance to attend the real concert.
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