62 AUSTRALIANPHOTOGRAPHY.COM AUSTRALIAN PHOTOGRAPHY + DIGITAL SEPTEMBER 2015
Herzfeld’s five performance categories
Herzfeld suggests performance photography can be broken down into five
categories, with each requiring different equipment. The first is rehearsal
shots taken in the rehearsal room, or in studio showings where there are
minimal lighting sets, or during rehearsals on stage. Rehearsals tend to
be badly lit, and with fluoro lights and mercury vapour, you’re likely to find
everything that’s unfriendly for a modern digital camera. The second is
marketing shots taken in studio set-ups, or stage set-ups which replicate the
look and feel of the show. The highest quality marketing images are generally
studio based. Headshots are the third category. Every program has head
shots of the performers in it. If you want to do performance photography,
perfect your ‘headshot’ technique, he says. The penultimate category is show
performance shots. In the theatre, prior to the actual performance, he moves
about the back of the stage or in the wings for a different view, shooting
hand-held. There is no time for set-ups, and you must keep out of everyone’s
way. He compares it a little to being like a fly on the wall. The last category is
personal projects where Herzfeld works closely with dancers, taking the time
to experiment with different photographic and lighting techniques to advance
his art of shooting performers.
Philippe Penel on post production
Penel says, “I work with RAW format and I choose the best shots in Adobe
Bridge. I’ll correct the colour balance, especially for stage performances.
I clean up skin imperfections, but I don’t go overboard unless a client
specifically requests it.” Penel says the most difficult problem to fix in post-
production is skin colour in situations when the stage colours are mono-
coloured, like bright red or green.
Sammy Roenfeldt on post production
Roenfeldt says, “I’m pretty OCD when it comes to my file management and
work-flow. All the gigs I shoot are in band folders dated for each show, and so
on. “As for editing, I use Adobe Bridge to sort through my photos. First thing
I do is to load my photos in Bridge then go through them one by one, selecting
the ones I like. I then go for a second look through these, culling ones which
are similar. For me, when I’m taking live photos, less is more. You don’t need
to post two photos of essentially the same pose. I then open up my images in
Adobe Camera RAW and do all my touch-ups in there. To be honest, I don’t
do a whole heap with my live photos other than enhance what’s already there.
I think this is really important. I’ll adjust the white balance to bring out natural
skin tones wherever possible and then just highlights, shadows, and so on
using curves. I also play around with saturation and luminance with the colours
a bit, just to make the photo ‘pop’ a bit more. For the better part, each photo will
only take me a few minutes to edit. On the odd occasion I will bring a live photo
into Photoshop to remove a stray mic stand or something if it’s distracting from
the photo. But ideally I like keeping the photo as true to the environment I shot
in as possible.”
Chris Herzfeld on post production
Herzfeld says he shoots “as clean as possible” to minimise the time he
has to spend in post-production. His work doesn’t involve any Photoshop
pasting or cutting. His philosophy is that what you see is what you get.
“I don’t use trampolines or harnesses. I don’t pose the dancers. The
dancers are moving in my shots. I don’t use a motor winder. All shots are
‘one takes’. The dancers jump and the shot is taken, with usually no more
than six shots per set up.” He shoots in RAW mode, and everything gets
processed because under mercury vapour or fluoro lighting the camera
will throw up a different colour. He takes this approach even if it means
overnight turnarounds. He agrees it’s time consuming, but he says,
“It depends on how you want your images to be seen. I use mainly what
you’d class as traditional darkroom techniques – dodging, burning, colour
correction, exposure, and because I’m not cutting or pasting, we’re not
adding elements to the images. I try to set up efficient work flows for post-
production by using batch processing as much as possible, but particularly
with the rehearsal shots I end up having to make adjustments to each shot.”
