Brunch, as seen through the lens

Last week, the Indiana Photographic Society photo club challenged each of its members to take a photograph during a breakfast in the next week and bring it to the next meeting. It was left to the members to decide what they wanted the picture to depict.

I didn't understand the challenge fully initially; it was relayed to me by email because I missed the meeting at which it was assigned. On first read, I thought we were being asked to photo document a breakfast, which would entail taking a series of photos. But no, it turns out, after carefully re-reading the email just a little while ago -- after I'd taken my pictures -- apparently just one photo is needed. And so, because I took more photos than I needed to, I felt it would be a shame for the images to go to waste. And Photo Potpourri readers win because of it!

I think the series of pictures would have made just as interesting of an essay, but this was my challenge: I normally don't eat breakfkast. I'm up early enough in the morning, and yes, I've long known of the admonition touting breakfast as the most important meal of the day (actually, I think that might be true for younger folks, who need -- and expend -- the fuel provided by a top-o'-the-morning meal; but for the older generation?).

But as it turned out, I had a brunch date Sunday with a group of people (a meal I left quickly, incidentally, to ensure I could arrive in time for the play rehearsal responsible for yesterday's post), and I figured this would be the ideal occasion to complete the club's assignment. And you readers "win" because while club members will see just one, representative photo, I'm going to lay out my full series for you here. In fact, if you'd like to chime in and vote for a picture here that you feel is most representative of the series -- the one I should take to the club for Wednesday evening's meeting -- I'd appreciate the input. I'm not sure just yet which one it should be, but I do know it will not be the one of me pretending to be bloated at the end of the meal. That one was way too obvious, and I will be very surprised if someone else in the club doesn't think to do something like that. Don't want to beat a dead horse idea, you know.

I lead off the post with a view of my meal after a few bites of the Belgian waffle, topped with strawberries, maple syrup and some butter. The fork and knife were included to document that I'm civilized and don't use my hands to eat (kidding ... I really do). The rest of the photos, below, will be presented in chronological order, beginning with the arrival of water and coffee.

Above and below: Water is served and coffee quickly follows. The eyes belong to a couple of fellow diners. I liked the composition below, even though I didn't use sweeteners in coffee.

Above and below: In the pursuit of accuracy in chronology, the server delivered this dish first, before the waffle. 

Above and below: My Belgian waffle, with strawberry topping, and single side dish, bacon, which came with the waffle, as they were served. 

Above and below: I clued in fellow diners about what I was doing, so a few sitting near me allowed me to photograph their plates as they arrived. Both of these meals are Eggs Benedict with Canadian bacon. The diner above asked for a side dish of stoned ground corn creamy grits; the one below, the fruit medley.

Above: A late-arriving fellow diner who ordered a pomegranate mimosa received the beverage right about the time the rest of us were getting our meals.

Above and below: My waffle after applying the syrup, and the empty syrup receptacle. I initially was going to pass on using the butter, but had a change of heart and put it on at the end. Hence, the photo at the top of this post.

Above: My cup runnething low.

Above: A fellow diner also ordered the Belgian waffle, but chose a walnut topping.

Above: The aftermath of a fellow diner's order of Florentine, a concoction of baked eggs, spinach and Fleur de la Terre cheese.

Above and below: I'd almost finished my waffle, and on the home stretch of the bacon.

Above: This is 21st-century America; where would we be without our cellphones? And no, these were not provided by the eatery as "extras" with the silverware and napkin.

Above: Leftovers from one of the Eggs Benedict meals is package for take home. 

Above: My coffee mug and water receptacle, and a peek at the diner across from me. I wanted the mug to be the focus, but the Canon PowerShot G12 I used for this shoot cannot focus on objects that close, so by default, the water receptacle became the focus of the image.

Above: Here's the photo you do NOT vote for. It was posed, the lens' wide angle distorts the features, and I swear someone else doctored this to make me look far more bloated than I really was before I could get my hands on it.

We interrupt this rehearsal for a special moment in this couple's life together

A funny thing happened Sunday afternoon at what started as a routine, scheduled rehearsal of A Midsummer Night's Dream, the fall production of the all-volunteer Garfield Shakespeare Company.

As Spencer Elliott and fellow actors proceeded through the lines in the first scene of Act Four, Elliott gazed into the eyes of fellow cast member and on-stage and real-life lover Ashley Chase, just as he was supposed to. After dutifully reciting the Shakespearean lines in which Demetrius, Elliott's character, declares that he no longer has eyes for Hermia and that Helena (Chase) is "the sole object and pleasure" of his eyes, he broke from script, dropped to one knee and asked Chase to marry him.

After a few moments to gain her composure, the startled Chase announced that she accepted the proposal -- and tried on the engagement ring that Elliott offered her. The rest of the cast, several of whom had been aware of Elliott's plan, applauded and joined the couple on stage, where rehearsal took a backseat to celebratory hugs and some sharing of cake and beverages.

I was on hand to take pictures because I was one of those Elliott had tipped off that this would be happening. He trusted me with providing a permanent record that he and Chase could enjoy for years to come. I'd never witnessed a public marriage proposal, so this, too, was the first I'd ever photographed.

We've all heard stories about how this kind of special moment went down for various people we know. Some stories are more remarkable, more creative than others. Most people elect a private method, because to them, the one-on-one intimacy is what makes it special. Others, however, view the public approach -- like what Elliott decided to go with -- as the thing that makes it special, because very few people dare to go through an incredibly nerve-wracking moment in front of people who will remember so many of the details.

Right about the time when someone called for a "group hug" in the celebratory aftermath, Elliott explained to everyone present that he had participated in several community theater productions before, but that no assembly of cast and crew had made him feel as at home and as comfortable as the group surrounding him and Chase that afternoon.

The words were the crowning touch to a very special moment, indeed.

The pictures here are from my shoot from Sunday, beginning with the one on top, which is right at the point where Elliott is breaking from script to transition into taking a knee, immediately below. Performances of Midsummer will be at 8 p.m. Sept. 21-22 and 28-29 (rain dates are Oct. 5-6) at the MacAllister Center for the Performing Arts in Garfield Park, Indianapolis. Admission is free; donations are welcome.

A full -- but temporary -- gallery of images from the proposal can be found at this link.

Above and next two below: Chase is reeling from the unexpected, and in the first frame below, she's resorts to a one-foot hop to help her deal with the emotions. After she accepts, Spencer stands up and offers the comfort of an embrace.

Above and below: The embrace as seen by fellow cast members who were with the couple on the stage for the scene (above) and those not on stage for the scene (below), observing from the front rows of the MacAllister Center for the Performing Arts.

Above and next two below: Elliott helps Chase try her first fit of the engagement ring.

Above: Chase and Christy Walker (red hair) portay Helena and Hermia, respectively, in the Shakespeare play, while Elliott and Andy Sturm (blue T-shirt, right) play the love interests of those women. It seemed appropriate, then, that they give each other the first hugs from fellow cast members after the big announcement.

Above: Chase still getting used to that new addition of jewelry.

Above: The celebratory cake, with the now-empty jewelry box at left, sitting atop -- appropriately enough -- one of the actor's play manuscript.

Above: Elliott, perhaps a bit shell-shocked himself, although the tell-tale expression is as genuine as genuine can be.

Above: The group hug, featuring cast members (clockwise front left) Stephen Foxworthy, Lexie Brown, Gabby Sandefer, Elliott, Andy Sturm, Cody Blackford, J.D. Bonitz and Ben Konz. Observing in the background are (from left) Chris Burton, Clara Ross and Todd Crickmore.

Above: Ben Konz takes a turn serving up a slice of cake to fellow cast member Sha Rebekah Collier. 

Above: Chase and Elliott getting a little practice at serving each other a bite of cake.

Posed, or not? That is the question ...

In Sunday's post, I presented some pictures I took of a handful of costumed performers during a rehearsal of the Garfield Shakespeare Company's upcoming production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream." The photos of the costumed actors and actresses were intended for use in advance publicity. Except for one or two hamming-it-up shots, none of those -- or any of the shots I took at rehearsal -- were posed.

There isn't anything wrong with posed publicity shots; it's just that in the time I've spent doing theatrical photography, I really relish getting natural "looks" and motion.  At the same time, I've learned lessons -- like Thursday (and, now that I think of it, also at one of my two shoots last spring at rehearsal for the same theater troupe's production of "The Taming of the Shrew"). And that lesson is: If the lighting is not going to deliver for you in the way you'd like or need, then go to Plan B: pose the shots, and possibly introduce some artificial light.

I took a couple hundred shots over the course of two days of rehearsals last week, and today's post is dedicated to presenting every one of the actual "posed" shots I took; and contrast those with some that were not posed, so you'll hopefully know the difference ... if your'e one of those who wasn't clear on it before! A full gallery of images from the PR shoot can be found at my site at SmugMug.com.

So now I throw it back to you. Can you tell which of the photos in this post are posed, and which are not? The answer is pretty easy. The one leading off the post and the first seven below were the performers caught in actual mid-routine and in serious rehearsal. Not posed. Everything below the line of asterisks was posed, but then ... I took those because the performers themselves -- not I -- spontaneously hammed it up during a break, and I felt the shots accurately represented the "fun" atmosphere I sensed at the rehearsal at the time. I did not intend to use any of those for formal publicity purposes.

If you missed Sunday's post, the actors you see here are Susan Yeaw and Stephen Foxworthy, in the lead photo and in several below, who play Titania and Oberon; J.D. Bonitz, who you see immediately below as Puck, the mischievous fairy and servant of Oberon; Gabby Sandefer, who plays Fairy No. 1 (aka Mustardseed); Ashley Chase and Spencer (the first pair of "lovers" below), who play Helena and Demetrius; and Christy Walker and Andy Sturm, who play Hermia and Lysander.

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Shakespeare troupe tackles 'Midsummer'

Word-of-mouth support is appreciated and welcomed by anyone in need of promoting a cause, product or event, but everybody understands how visual impressions -- pictures or video -- can do so much more to accomplish that objective.

Which is why I was excited when the Garfield Shakespeare Company indicated recently that it wanted some photographs of its fall production, "A Midsummer Night's Dream," in advance of the Sept. 21-22/28-29 show dates at the MacAllister Center for the Performing Arts in Garfield Park, Indianapolis. In the past, the company has traditionally had me just shoot live peformances so they had pictures for its website. To do photos this far in advance, of course, the cast and crew directed by Joe Cook had to get into costume, and for a costumer like Bradley A. Jones, who's done a masterful job handling that task for the all-volunteer troupe, it means a lot of time and repeated work.

So the troupe did the promotional shoot in stages -- the fairy scenes last Wednesday, and the lead "lovers" -- Demetrius and Helena, and Lysander and Hermia -- on Thursday. It was a little odd seeing some cast members in costume, and others in plain clothes, going through their routines. I could have asked that we simply do posed shots to make the job simpler, but you can't get "natural" expressions on actors' faces the way you can during a performance, so the show went on both days.

I had some beautiful conditions for photography, as it turned out, on the first day, the shoot devoted to the play's costumed fairies. We were able to use the outdoor MacAllister venue for the backdrop; this is where the play will be staged later this month. Until the sun went down, the shade lighting was constant, with an occasional solitary splash of tree-filtered, sun-setting highlight that I exploited when possible, but nothing I couldn't work around. As long as I could frame my compositions using the amphitheater's black background -- and avoid the elevated, colorful Indy Parks banner stripped across the top part of the stage -- I was getting splendid images.

Lighting for the shoot the following day, the one devoted to the play's "lovers," was not nearly as grand. The amphitheater was not available, so the cast moved inside to the nearby Garfield Park Arts Center's main exhibit hall, whose space in late afternoon is spotted -- literally -- with blinding sun-setting light through the west windows. With actors darting constantly into and out of the various light spots right in the heart of the performance area, my shot options were extremely limited. I should have asked Cook that we halt performances and just do posed shots where I could pick spots without the sunlight interference; in the future, I'll know better. But I also noticed that much of the cast was still not "off book." Cast members who are not off book have not mastered their lines yet and move around rehearsals with manuscript in hand to cue or even read from when doing their lines. So I didn't want to deny the cast another chance to get familiar with their parts.

Today's post is devoted to the shoots at those rehearsals. On a side note, one of the cast members of GSC's "Midsummer" is my son Ben. He plays Theseus, Duke of Athens, whose impending marriage to Amazon queen Hippolyta, whom Theseus had recently conquered in battle, is the storyline that opens the performance in one of Shakespeare's most charming plays. Ben was not one of the cast members included for the costumed publicity photos, but I include a shot of him (above, left) at the second of the two rehearsals during a walk-through of a scene in the final act. The photo also helps illustrate the challenges a volunteer troupe like GSC faces while preparing a production: Ben is pictured with Susan Yeaw standing in for the role of Hippolyta because Alexis Brown, the actress who will play Hippolyta for the live shows, was absent that day. Yeaw is in the cast, too; her role is Titania, queen of the fairies, and she appears in some of the publicity shots you see in today's post, including the one at the top, leading off the post. With her (and again immediately below) is Stephen Foxworthy, who portrays Oberon, king of the fairies.

Many other photos from the shoots can be found at my Facebook page.

Above and below: Brad Jones' costuming and makeup stands out in these shots of "Midsummer" characters Puck and Oberon. Puck, the mischievous fairy and servant of Oberon, is played by J.D. Bonitz; Oberon by Stephen Foxworthy. Bonitz and Foxworthy capture their roles masterfully.

Above: Another frame from the scene involving Bonitz as Puck (left) and Foxworthy as Oberon.

Above: Playing the role of the No. 1 fairy is Gabby Sandefer, a Perry Meridian High School junior. She and Bonitz also appeared in the GSC's production of "The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark" last fall.

Above: The four costumed cast members hammed it up for a posed shot during a break in the Wednesday rehearsal at the amphitheater. From left: Susan Yeaw as Titania, queen of the fairies; J.D. Bonitz, the mischievous fairy Puck, servant of Oberon; Gabby Sandefer as No. 1 fairy; and Stephen Foxworthy as Oberon, king of the fairies.

Above: Bonitz and Sandefer, the two fairies costumed for the PR shoot. 

Above: My usable shots (for publicity purposes) from the shoot Thursday inside the Garfield Park Arts Center were limited to chance catches outside the blinding spotty sunlight from windows or via creative crops in post-processing. This shot of Ashley Chase (left), who plays Helena, and Spencer Elliott, who plays Demetrius, illustrates the latter: A blast of sunlight hit this couple right below the mark where you see the bottom crop line. But, the crop did turn out to be kind of interesting; it added intrigue to Chase's hand, and her expression helps a lot, too, I thought. 

Above: Chase (left) with Christy Walker, who plays Hermia. 

Above and below: The two "lovers" couples who dressed in costume for Thursday's rehearsal. Above are Chase and Elliott again; below, Walker and Andy Sturm, who plays Lysander. As for use in any publicity, the bottom photo is questionable' as you can see, Sturm is still not "off book."