Musicals

One in a series of 23 headshots I took for Missouri Street Theatre. One hour to light it, one hour to shoot it…for all 23 people! Book your headshot session by clicking here.

Company portrait of Aris Roberson for Missouri Street Theatre’s production of “Once Upon A Mattress.” Photo by Mike Padua.

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One in a series of 23 headshots I took for Missouri Street Theatre. One hour to light it, one hour to shoot it…for all 23 people! Book your headshot session by clicking here.

Company portrait of Kirstin Pieschke for Missouri Street Theatre’s production of “Once Upon A Mattress.” Photo by Mike Padua.

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See more work on my website.

One in a series of 23 headshots I took for Missouri Street Theatre. One hour to light it, one hour to shoot it…for all 23 people! Book your headshot session by clicking here.

Company portrait of Ethan Bell for Missouri Street Theatre’s production of “Once Upon A Mattress.” Photo by Mike Padua.

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See more work on my website.

One in a series of 23 headshots I took for Missouri Street Theatre. One hour to light it, one hour to shoot it…for all 23 people! Book your headshot session by clicking here.

Company portrait of John Ewing for Missouri Street Theatre’s production of “Once Upon A Mattress.” Photo by Mike Padua.

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See more work on my website.

It’s official: my new website has launched. It’s much easier and smoother to navigate, and it’s optimized to work on big screens, small screens, and everything in between. The pictures are beautifully displayed and all the functionality to deliver pictures to clients quickly and securely remains.

HUGE thanks to Photoshelter for providing the amazing tools they do for photographers.

Check it out!

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I took a little break from shooting theatrical and film productions to focus more on shooting headshots this year–or at least I thought I did. It turns out I’ve shot almost as many productions (both theatre and film) as I did the previous year, in addition to the headshots. This is just the professional stuff–there’s so much more personal work that I’ve shot that I haven’t even begun to sort through. Here’s a little review of some of the work I did 2013.

Theatrical Productions

The Fourth Messenger – A new, original musical by Tanya Shaffer, Directed by Matt August. See the whole gallery.

Sweeney Todd – Presented by Bay Area Stage, Directed by Jeff Lowe. See the whole gallery.

Funny Girl – Presented by Lucky Penny Productions, Directed by Barry Martin. See the whole gallery.

Wonder of the World – Presented by Napa Valley Playhouse and Lucky Penny Productions, Directed by Taylor Bartolucci. See the whole gallery.

Desire, Despair, Destiny & Death! – Presented by Opera Bravura. Check out their schedule of shows.

The Importance of Being Earnest – Presented by Bay Area Stage, Directed by Jeff Lowe. See the whole gallery.

Films

“New,” directed by John Harden. Cinematographer Kirk Douglas and Director John Harden discuss the next shot.

Rise,  Directed by Scott O’Hara. Check it out on Facebook.

Story of Eva, Directed by Tom Woodbeck. Left to right: Sound Engineer David Minard, Cinematographer Jason Morris, Director Tom Woodbeck. Check it out on Facebook and their website.

Headshots

And of course, I focused on shooting actors and performers headshots in 2013. One notable instance was shooting 23 headshots within an hour for the entire cast of Missouri Street Theatre’s “Once Upon a Mattress:”

Click here for headshot information.

Missouri Street Theatre‘s production of Once Upon a Mattress needed portraits of all 23 of their cast, and we had an hour to set up and light on location, and then one hour to shoot all 23 people. Up to the task? Of course I was…but it would have been difficult without an assistant to help schlep and set up lights, stand in for test shoots, then take names of all 23 people and help move the line along. That’s where my trusty assistant Victor came in:

I opted for simple: one key light directly above, a silver reflector below, and two back lights camera left and right against white seamless.

The biggest challenge was pulling real expressions out of people instead of the “say cheese” expressions you normally see in wham-bam, super fast cattle call portraits. I had 20 seconds to build rapport with someone who I’d never met, so that I could elicit real expressions and then about a minute and a half to shoot about 7-8 pictures. I was careful not to just spray and pray, and really worked on getting subjects to laugh, smile and express something genuine with their eyes…23 times.

The results were posted in Fairfield’s Downtown Theatre lobby along with each performer’s bio during the run of the show. It was an especially fun assignment since I had once nephew assisting and another nephew performing in the show.

Here’s a little preview of the results, but you’re going to have to see the show if you want to see the final, printed lobby shots:

Info on booking headshots, in studio and on location, can be found on my website.

It’s been a couple of years since I shot this show, but it’s still one of the fastest, most kinetic shows I’ve photographed as of yet, not to mention my first musical. The performances and movement make these types of shows really difficult to shoot, but the results are always so rewarding. I’m always trying to capture the peak of action–the moments that tell a story and hopefully get people to want to see the show. Yet again, Bay Area Stage built a killer set, created an amazing array of costumes, and brought on powerful and dynamic performers to fill the roles.

Check out the entire gallery here.