Ian's-tagram

Thursday brought me to the parc Endoumingue in Auch where the companies had erected two huge circus tents.

The first up was AKOREACRO and « Dans ton coeur » (In your heart) – there’s something very reassuring about this company – total professionals, you know that you will have a good spectacle – and this was certainly the case tonight.

The performance lasted 1h 15minutes and was dynamite from the start! Here’s another one – look at the image closely…

I only had to walk about 10 metres to get to my next spectacle – CirkVOST and « Hurt me tender ». This was quite good, dynamic etc. but for me not as ‘competent’ as AKOREACRO – that’s not to say it was bad, it was just not as coherent as a whole for me – but the artists were certainly supercharged and gave their all – not bad at all.

After these two, my last performance was back at CiRCa in the Salle Bernard Turin – I’m beginning to wonder if this salle hasn’t got a jinx or something as the performance was, well, how can I say….boring? This was La JUNE with « DRU » – to start with the I wasn’t allowed to make any noise – there was no backing music or sounds of any sort, and the two girls on the stage basically just jumped up and down onto two trapezes. This lasted for 45 minutes….it was long, very long…

Better luck next time….

Day 8 (Friday) I didn’t see anything – I was tired and the only one I had programmed was probably going to be very slow so I stayed at home…more on day 9 (Saturday)

 

Wow – what a contrast. I don’t think I’ve have ever been so unimpressed, and above all bored, with a circus performance before this evening! Sorry guys but this really was a piss take. Naïf Productions with « Des gens qui dansent » (People who dance) There is a huge variation in the quality and content of the work we see here – I understand this, but this performance was simply the most contrived and « intellectualized » that I think I’ve ever seen. It lasted an hour – which I estimate is about 55 minutes too long… (and discussions with another photographer after the performance made me realize that I wasn’t alone)

I have to follow certain rules when I take photographs of the circus companies – this evenings were fairly simple, no photographs during the monologue (which started the performance) which lasted a little more than 10 minutes… and then be careful in the quiet periods. Essentially this meant sitting for 50 minutes with the camera on my lap. I’ll look at the other 40 images I made later on…this is one that worked…for now…

Quick drive from CiRCa to the Centre Cuzin (the other side of town) and I met a couple of old friends (well, acquaintances really). I’ve photographed Serge and Colline a number of times over the past few years – and always with different companies – this time Les Mains Sales (Dirty Hands) is their own company.

The lighting was very difficult for this performance, and coupled with the fact that there were very few periods of ‘noise’ or music, almost impossible to photograph without having camera noises.

With a bit of luck Thursday (Day 7) should be more productive…

Day 4, Monday, was interesting – I was supposed to follow two spectacles, but I hadn’t been too impressed with the previous time I’d seen Alexander Vantournhout and so I let « Red Haired Men » slide…

But I did see Cirque Aïtal and « Season de Cirque » which was good – and enabled me to see how things had developed since I photographed them here in résidence.

Katy and Viktor were just as crazy, and a lot of the slow bits have been speeded up and all it all it was a good evening.

Tuesday, day 5, started off with the Cie Aléas – I know these two from previous spectacles with other companies, so it was great to seem them on their own.

The whole spectacle revolved around a triangle comprised of two ladders – it’s amazing what you can do with a ladder and 35 minutes stage time… Enjoyed it, which was the most important for me.

After this I drove over to the Dôme where a company I’ve followed for nearly three years (no doubt due to the fact it’s exclusively women…) performed « Project .PDF » – nothing to do with Acrobat reader or Photoshop – PDF stands for Portés de Femme.

Great show – much better ‘finished’ than I’d seen in the development stage… Another great evening…what will day 6 bring?

 

Day 2 brought us to see the Centre National des Arts de Cirque (CNAC) with « Zooo ». it was ‘different’ as the performance occurred in three places at once, and every 20 minutes the audience got up and moved to the next bit. In a purely artistic sense it was very well played, but a total horror to photograph. I did manage one I was pleased with, from up in the roof of the Dôme de Gascogne…

Later that same evening I traveled to the other side of the town to see Cirque Sans Noms with « Abaque » – this was more clowns than pure circus, and I enjoyed it a lot – despite the VERY low lighting for 90% of the performance…

Day 3 was back to CiRCa and Baro d’Evel with « Là » – I’ve photographed this company before, and they’ve often used my images so it was a pleasure to see a new piece – however there’s a moratorium on the images and I can’t publish certain sequences without an OK from the company.  This one doesn’t give the game away!

The festival has opened, and first up (for me) is « Kaaos Kaamos » a co-operative of circus artists based in Sweden.

I enjoyed it a great deal – a great start to the week. Young and very dynamic.

I’ll add more as the week advances…

 

YES! The 31st Festival CiRCa starts today – 10 days of madness in and around Auch – I am covering 17 performances, some I know, but a lot of new work – watch this space!

#festival_circa_2018

Well yes – from time to time it’s a good idea to clean the muck off the sensor of your camera/s, and as the Circus Festival starts in 5 days time….I thought it best to be prepared.

I prefer the « wet » method of sensor cleaning – a couple of drops of cleaning fluid on the swab and a couple of gentle passes on the sensor.

The best way to check if the cleaning has got rid of all the muck is to take a photograph with your widest wide angle lens – in my case, I used my 14mm, stopped down to it’s minimum – f/22. Take a photo of the sky or a bright, even surface – much easier to see the blobs of muck. Using the minimum aperture means that the natural ‘diffraction’ which occurs at very small apertures will mean that the dust spots really stand out.

This is an example before the cleaning process. The dark spots are tiny pieces of dust. It saves a lot of post treatment to remove this rubbish before making pictures! (Click on the image to enlarge it)

Here’s a example of how a little « treatment » can enhance an image. Some people would throw up their arms in horror and say stupid things like « This never happened before Photoshop » etc.

Of course it did – for more than 80 years there have been a whole series of different contrast printing papers that photographers put to good use in their darkrooms. With the advent of colour photography, home printing became more complex, but « adjustments » were always made, to increase or decrease colour temperature, take out dust etc. To say we have never « treated » images before Photoshop is a fallacy. Click on all the images below to enlarge them.

This is the final « treated » image

To get there, we started with this…

…which has had no colour or exposure adjustments – just simple noise reduction and lens correction.

I applied a few very simple adjustments to get this…

…which isn’t too bad, but I felt it needed a little more contrast…and I also added a « vignette » to loose the hard edges…which became the final version.

I also created a black & white version, just for fun, as high contrast black & whites are a favourite of mine…

It’s ok – but I think I prefer the final colour version – I fully realize that I’m in a minority of one, and probably the only person who likes this – I just thought it showed a very simple approach to creating a more interesting image.

But don’t forget – the original image needs to be correctly exposed in the first place. The people who blindly fire off their cameras all over the place, not taking any account of the exposures, are basically wasting their time – when they download the initial images they will have to spend a considerable time trying to get them back, more or less, to a « correct » exposure (but isn’t really) and then even more time and effort to fine-tune the image to make it worth looking at, which more often than not, it isn’t.

Getting it right in the camera is primordial – with a good base, you can pretty much do whatever you want.

I can’t believe I missed this – and I feel sure my daughters will never let me forget it – but I seem to have let National Daughters Day * pass without sendind a card…

Please excuse me – in my defense, I had no idea that there was a National Daughters Day…

I’m Googling « National Left Thumb Day » and « National Clean Underpants Day » to check the dates – best to keep ahead.

Can’t help thinking that « National Blue Sock Day » could be fun…

* It was on the 25th of September

 

Sometimes I wonder if these idiots do these things on purpose. I mean, they can’t really be this stupid, can they?

Recent in a long line of #stupidquotes, here’s Mary Carryonbag, otherwise known as Pariah Carey, I’m sorry, Maria Carey:

« Whenever I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the world, I can’t help but cry…I mean I’d love to be skinny like that, but not with all those flies and death and stuff. »

And of course we can’t forget Ronald Bump:

Talking about John McCain, « He’s not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured, OK, I hate to tell you. »

And surprisingly for Al Gore;

« A zebra does not change its spots. »

It seems to me that there’s an inverse correlation between the dollars in ones bank account and the neurones in ones brain.