Flames
After my photography class last night I walked over to Union Square to catch the subway home. A group of dancers were, as there often are, in the middle of the square putting on a performance with various forms of torches: batons, hula hoops, and probably most impressive of all, torches on the end of chains. I stopped and took some shots, playing with slightly longer shutter speeds to get the path of the flame. Part way through the performance, one of the dancers, collection bag in hand, asked me if I would take pictures for them. I eagerly agreed.
I shot in black and white, both because it's easier and because I've had to for my class, but I also turned RAW capture on to see if anything good would come from the color versions. The shutter speeds were a little too low at ISO 800 to get good shots of their faces, so I bumped it up to 1600, which seemed to be just enough. This gave the black and white versions a bit of grain, which I like, but unfortunately it was too much noise for the color versions.
They said that they're there every night, so I might go back again this week to see if I can do any better. I'd love to get some strobes and try out some of what I've seen over at Strobist, but I don't really know anything about lighting yet, so I think I'll have to wait to try it out some before I go around blinding everyone.
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