Last Sunday, we took our three-years-old daughter to see her first ballet performance – the Nutcracker. She is really into ballet (to my continuing surprise), and she was looking forward to the show for the last week. I thought that the expectation might be too high, but she really enjoyed the whole theatre-going experience and the show itself, even though she was a bit disappointed that Cinderella was not it it.
I wanted to take a few shots of my daughter at the theatre for our family albums (in a virtual sense – perhaps, actual paper albums would not even exist when she grows up). I knew that an iPhone would not do it, as it is quite dark in the theatre. Fortunately, since we have a young child, we always carry a shoulder bag with some snacks, change of clothes, etc., so I put my Canon EOS-1D X
Having seats next to an aisle was very convenient, as I could back away into the aisle to take a wider shot without disturbing others. Naturally, we only took photos before the performance and during the intermission, as we walked through the hallways, but that was all we really wanted.
The colour of the lighting in the theatre was not flattering for portraits, to say the least. In some shots, the shadows ended up with a purple cast, while the highlights were green – nearly impossible to get a realistic skin tone. In this case, I converted the photos to black and white, which also helped with the noise.
