Yeela - Performing

I can not stop listening to Yeela  singing , warm, full of passion ,a very special soprano artist. Here in the Tel Aviv Museum of art concert.

Thanks for viewing, pity that you can not hear....;-))

Great composition and very good use of lighting. A lot of feeling in this picture. The violist in the background add to the mood. Very well done.

An impressive presentation. I even can hear, it is like an audio-photo.

excellent...

What to say that I haven't already said! Congratulations Pnina!

Best regards!

PDE

Very nice moment captured. It's interesting how the open sheet music intrudes a kind of groundedness on the scene, a sudden triangular very physical geometry serving as a counterpoint to the more sensual view of the singer and musician. And the triangle of the sheet music complete a triangle of the singer, the musician, and the sheet music all taken together. So there's a kind of compositional echoing here which is effective. Interesting choice to keep the musician so out of focus, using the blur of depth of field rather than motion blur. Has very much impact on the relationship of the two, separating them, really allowing for the singer to be the focus and the musician to be an accompanist and not a visual equal.

Obviously, you're working inside and with interior incandescent lighting . . . the yellow cast is quite pronounced, a bit much for me but a matter of taste, of course.

A superb shot Pnina! Excellent composition, and expertly photographed. You can feel the passion in her song here. Well done!

All the best,
Neil

For the nice feedback!

Fred, thanks for your detailed impressions.The lights on the stage are very strong. Most of the timeI work with underexposur in order to overcome  and not burn the scenes, and it is still a strong light...;-))

BTW, the 1.7.2011 I open a one woman show in a nice Gallery in Tel Aviv, Yeela and one or two musicians of that group Orchestra will sing at the opening.It is a great tribute for our work together. The invitation is in Hebrew but I will still upload it for you to see.

Neil, thanks as well for your nice impressions

Pnina, like Gunnar, I can almost  hear her singing. I admire how you gave kept Yeela in sharp focus, while the violinist is playing in background .Is she singing an Aria?

Pnina,

As Fred notes in his critique, the triangle formed by the open sheet music plays an important role in the composition.  I also find the blackness of the back of the music stands adds another physical layer of separation between the two performers which reinforces the isolation imposed by your choice of dof. They really do look to be, each in their own thoughts. I am often struck during orchestral or otherwise large ensemble performances by the way in which the musicians reside in relative isolation concentrating on their own lines on the sheet music in front of them while at the same time being integral parts of a larger whole... a sort of musical democracy.

I think that perhaps what Fred was referring to with the lighting was not the intensity but the colour or white balance. You are shooting under incandescent light and you auto white balance in the camera is giving you a very much  ( imo also, too much )  warm light. You can of course correct the white balance in the raw file, provided that you should want to.

I quickly dragged and dropped the jpeg into Lightroom and used the eyedropper tool to sample the sheet music which I assume to be pure white and this gives a more natural result. Of course as Fred wrote colour temperature beyond being balanced can be more a matter of personal taste than anything else.

If the two of you say it is too much I think it should be worked again...;-))

I will upload this  reworked  version and tell me please if it looks better?

I like the yellow lights as it shows that it is a stage show with stage strong lights , as I explained to Fred,  I work with a strong under exposure( the most my camera allows me , 2 full stops).

 I liked a lot your impressions that I feel as well in  concerts, they are ensembles, and still each in his own world . It works well when   they are separate and connnected at the same time...

Gord (and Fred),  thanks for your integrity which helps a lot.

Your reworking looks pretty de-saturated. For a more realistic color sense, I worked ONLY on the woman. In Photoshop, I used my Selective Color Menu. I set it to absolute. For the red color, I set the yellow slider bar to -10%. And for the yellow color, I set the yellow slider bar to -15%. I would handle the gentleman somewhat differently. He's harder to deal with since this is not a RAW file, and I would probably make the adjustments in my RAW converter program rather than Photoshop, but I think you'll find doing what I've done at least a good starting point. You might still nuance it from there.

Thanks for the lesson  I tried it and I still like my original upload ,but I think that your way is a good way and I will use it in the future. The reworked is not my taste but I wanted to find out what is the middle way and the best one. Thanks again for the follow up.