The Orphanage Project > Stephen Henry | Brisbane Photographer

The Orphanage Project

24-February-2010

There’re two types of performance photography, each in many ways the opposite of the other. Rehearsal photography involves a virtually empty room with even (but usually low) lighting, actor/s and a director, often an assortment of designers, sound composers and lighting specialists and occasionally the playwright, all meeting to discuss and perform the script. Over three hours or so there may be the same 5-10 minute scene repeated over and over interspersed with discussion. The trick is to get variety.

Production photography is recording the performance in its finished form with costumes, and often with bright constantly changing, high contrast lighting, you’ve got no idea what will happen next and there’s only one chance to get it.

My first production shoot for The Queensland Theatre Co. was “The Orphanage Project” in 2003. Written by the very talented Angela Beitzen, the play was an alternate history of Australia from the veiwpoint of the non-beneficiaries of settlement and society in general. She teamed up with director Leticia Carceras plus an ensemble of youthful actors and production professionals to deliver a poignant reminder about a wrong this country was collectively denying at the time. It was a stinging volley of shots during the long dark years of the “Howard Culture Wars”. Bravo.