Roger's Blog: Opera

Wow - I have been photographing the Sacramento Opera since the first performance in the Community Center Theater - 1981 La Boheme. And yes. we have files and files of negatives ... :). I have always loved photographing theater - Joan and I even got married in a friends theater where I also did some photography back in the day ... Our daughter and a friend did a ballet piece to flute music by Rampal, a musician played and then we got married for the 3rd act.

Our studio (Eleakis & Elder Photography) and the Saramento Opera had a reception showing some of our favorite opera photos at the now closed 'Lounge On 20' last Saturday - right in the middle of the Midtown's Second Saturday event ... opera music playing out the doors with belly dancers and drums in the street ... an unexpected mix that really went with the photography :)

Here are a few of my favorite photos from the show...

We photograph each of the Sacramento Opera's performances at their last dress rehearsal. This last performance was the Elixir of Love - sacopera.org .... I love photographing theater, I love the music and the lighting, and I really enjoy being able to share images from the performances with the fans and the chorus.

OK, so the Good news and the Bad news ...

Good News = Elixir is a fun show!

Bad News = Normally by this time I have a whole opera full of images posted to our web site with free access to the images for the chorus, but the web server that we are hosting our opera galleries and shopping cart from is about full (we use Total Choice Hosting for those that are curious). I need to research whether we should remove some old galleries or pay for more server space (right now we are paying for 3 Gigs). We are in the middle of Christmas rush, so posting Elixer needs to wait until I have time to figure it out.

Each opera takes a bit of room on the server and I have been of the mind set to leave them up forever so that the Sacramento Opera has a living archive of their work .... maybe this is an unreasonable approach, or maybe this is really a good thing ... I would appreciate any feedback from the chorus and others on this .... I can see doing any mix of the following ...

post all operas as we are now
weed down each opera to fewer images (takes more time to weed more and it is hard to know who might be in the background of a photo and really appreciate the shot)
remove each opera after a period of time (just post last 24 months?)
post favorite images to a blog like this and not to our gallery - those that are interested in seeing the others can come by our studio ...
any other choices??????

The photos are available on our web site for free, and this blog also by right clicking on an image and choosing Save Image As (or something like that). As always, please give us and the opera credit if you use the photos anywhere.

Here are some of my favorites from Elixir - I made sure to include some chorus shots ;-) ...

Great Legs .... :-)

Yes, I am running around the sides of the stage, I used to not, but then Jennifer at the Opera said she needed more close ups for press use ...

I don't know the characters, my focus is all on visually what is happening (and I have never been interested in the stories, just the music and the theater of it). I have photographed all of the Opera's performances since they started performing in the big theater and I love the music and catching challenge of catching the fleeting moments.

Everyone in the production really gave it their all! even light on their feet ...