Performing the distant past
From the late eighties until two thousand, I had a second job gig with our provincial theatre in Reggio Emilia and Aterballetto, which back then was an important dance company in Italy. I also did some photography for other theatres and dance/theatre companies
The theatre are acquiring my "performing arts" film negative archive for their historic archives. The negs were just rotting away in my old darkroom, so it is good they will stored properly and preserved. I should have done it sooner, but I have been busy making digital scans of the things that interest me, and that I had not already scanned. My Z7 with 50mm macro, plus the ES2 attachment, makes it quite quick and easy. I think I have about 80,000 frames to look at, but with a lot of duplication and obvious fails. I used to expect to get about ten good pictures from a dance shoot with ten rolls of film.
It has been quite enjoyable going back over this photography, and I have found things I missed the first time around.
Here are a few quick conversions. The golf ball grain is due to Tmax 400ASA film pushed to 1600 and beyond. Capture One was used for the conversions, as it has dodging and burning tools similar to those I used in the darkroom. It is nice to have no paper waste and local contrast control. Corrections are quick and easy on the computer. These shots were mostly taken with my multiple FM2 or F801 bodies, that I used back then, with mostly the lovely Nikon Ai 180 F.8 and a Tamron 300mm 2.8. All manual focus and exposure was guessed as the lighting would fool the light meter, although I did sometimes did use a Pentax spot meter.
Aterballetto.
Sade, with Massimo di Rossi. The Marchese de Sade meets a Nun.
Aterballetto, with Alessandra Ferri
Riccardo Chailly, great fun to watch from backstage.
Ellebbero Dance Company, putting together a choreography.
Monica Francia. This dance piece was illuminated with hand held mechanics lamps. F801 Tamron 300 wedged between two theatre seats in lieu of IBIS.
Teatro Due, Parma
Aterballetto
Semola Teatro.
Droom
Elisabetta Pozzi, Teatro Due