Monday, December 27, 2010

The Blizzard of 2010

New York City
Dec 27, 2010

Some photos from the East Village after the blizzard of 2010. This is being called the sixth largest snowstorm in the city's history, with 20-inches deposited in Central Park.






Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Complexions Contemporary Ballet - Summerstage 2010





The Complexions Contemporary Ballet perform at the City Parks Foundation's Summerstage in Central Park, August 10, 2010. Photos by Michael Seto.


I got the wonderful opportunity to shoot a couple shows for the City Parks Foundation's music program, performed in parks throughout the five boroughs during the summer.

Live action performances in a low-light situation present some tough challenges for a photographer, from an equipment standpoint and then from a capture standpoint.

Equipment-wise, better performing gear will give you greater opportunities to get the shot. The low-light levels require a combination of fast-glass, lenses with a max aperture of f2.8 or faster, and a camera capable of shooting high-ISO (1600+) without a lot of noise. Higher end camera's also possess superior (read faster) auto-focus systems.

This combination allowed me to shoot at my selected ISO of 2500, with a shutter speed of 1/250 - essential to freeze the movement - at an aperture of 2.8. I normally shoot in Manual mode, selecting all three key exposure measures based on conditions and my intentions.

Whereas, a consumer zoom at f5.6 would require an equivalent shutter speed of 1/60, giving unusable amounts of motion blur, or a ISO of 10,000.

Often, the distance to the performers calls for a telephoto lens, in this case, I used the Nikon 70-200 f2.8. The 85 f1.8 and 50 f1.4 also come in handy in these situations...now if I can just pick up the 200mm f2.

Gear aside, the other challenge is, similar to sports photography, capturing the classic "decisive moment." When is the dancer at the apogee of her leap? When is the critical interaction between dancers? The peak moment of emotional performance?

If you have not seen the performance before, you don't know any of this and need to 1) guess, 2) anticipate, and 3) get lucky. For me, it's taking clues from the music, the body language and facial expressions of the dancers, do they tense or do something that "tells" an upcoming peak movement? Is the music reaching a crescendo? These often signal a critical moment in the performance.

The other aspect is to consider your shooting angle, be aware of what is in the background, are you singling in on one performer or taking in the whole? Are you leaving room in the composition for movement? Is the light silhouetting the performer? Side light? Back light? Gulp, hatchet light?

All these factor in - camera, environment, performers, and the photographer's skills and intent. When it works, it's a zen-like feeling, where I am aware of all these inputs, but at an unconscious level; I'm not thinking about it. I know what my settings need to be, I feel the music and the dancers, and the moments seem to pick themselves and the shutter fires. That's being in the flow of your work, and I find that I feel that most often when photographing a live performance.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

New York Marathon 2010

The mass of runners pours down Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

See more photos of the 2010 ING NYC Marathon that were shot for The L Magazine at their website:

http://www.thelmagazine.com/newyork/at-the-2010-nyc-marathon/Slideshow?oid=1808307

Monday, December 13, 2010

Migrating Travelogue to Blogspot

Good morning,

Over the next few days (as time allows), I will be migrating my old Travelogue to Blogspot. The entries will be backdated to the appropriate date. This Travelogue represents my travel writing while on an around-the-world backpacking trip from 2001-2003. I'm doing this to rationalize some of the many disparate web properties I'm maintaining and hopefully through this, expand the audience as well.

Thanks for bearing with me.

Michael