So I found out about the MN Fringe Festival from one of my Twitter friends posting that the Fringe Fest needed volunteer photographers. I though that it would be a fun project to be involved in so I though I’d volunteer. So far everything has been pretty well organized for a festival, especially one that is happening at so many different locations around the Twin Cities. I wasn’t sure what type of access or where we would be shooting from for the various shows so I though I’d bring an assortment of different lenses to my first day of shooting. For my first day I was going to be shooting 4 different shows, all on the U of MN’s Rarig Thrust Theater. All 10 shows I’m shooting for the festival are at this theater except one that is in the parking lot of the Bedlam Theater. That one will be a challenge in a whole new way I’m sure.
After I picked up my photographers festival shirt and my photo pass, I headed over to the theater to figure some of the logistics out and scout the stage for different places to shoot from. When I got there it looked like I could possibly shoot from the music pit which was off to stage left, an alleyway leading away from the stage out in front of the stage, although it looked as if it might be being used by some of the cast as an entrance or exit from stage, right in front sitting below the first seats, or in the aisles and along the back of the seating area. Thankfully I brought my 70-200mm lens and the final shooting option seemed the best as I could move all along the back of the theater and shoot from various angles and with that lens still be close enough to the action.
While the light on stage was relatively bright I still shot at between 1000 and 1600 iso and was still able to get very usable files. The toughest part was all of the different hot spots on people, trying not to blow one thing out and have the others be in dark shadows. I also shot all the performances at F2.8 just to give me the most light and allow for the quickest shutter speeds as with a longer lens you need faster speeds so your images don’t become a blurry mess.
Below are a few shots from each show from Thursday Nights Opening Night performances at the U of MN Rarig Thrust Theater.
