Beauty and the Beast @ Cornerstone Christian School in Murrieta

Watching a an entertaining play is always nice.  Experiencing a great play plants images that turn into memories.  I was with family and friends at Cornerstone Christian School in Murrieta to check out my nephews in a production of Disney's Beauty and the Beast.   It was incredible.

This was my younger nephew as a peasant boy. He also played the part of "Chip" for this performance. I think he was the youngest performer in the show, being in kindergarten and all.

Gaston wooing Belle with his manliness and charm.  "Belle, it's about time you got your head out of those books and paid attention to more important things...like me!" -Gaston.

This was my other nephew, Daryl, performing as Lefou, Gaston's right hand man.
"Who, you? Never. Gaston, you've got to pull yourself together.
Gosh it disturbs me to see you, Gaston
Looking so down in the dumps
Every guy here'd love to be you, Gaston
Even when taking your lumps"
... good ole Lefou. 

The Beast and his magic mirror.

Mrs Potts, Chip and Maurice.

The Beast and Belle while they dance to the theme of the play...courtesy of Mrs Potts.

This was a great production of this Disney Classic.   A lot of hard work put in for a few nights of memorable performances.  Hats off to the actors, the production team, the technical crew, the parents and everybody else involved in this play.  Great work.

Techie Notes: It was a "no flash photography" zone for obvious reasons, so this is where a steady hand, anticipation of action and fast glass with wide apertures can all work together to bring out some good images.  There was really no space for a tripod, and it would only attract unwanted attention.
I was at ISO 1000 for most of the night, switching up to 1600 if it was a really dark scene. Most of the shots were done @ f2.8 unless conditions allowed for f3.5 or f4 just to get more than one subject into focus.  Timing was still key here, because I was shooting at very low shutter speeds...1/30, 1/15, 1/60 (while hand-holding the 70-200 IS lens) ...motion from any of the actors was fairly visible in the images i took.  This became an added level of difficulty when shooting Lumiere (who did a lot of gesturing with his hands), and Cogsworth (who did his gesturing by moving his head and torso).
The images were white-balanced in Photoshop, but I kept them a close to the original temperature of the mood to maintain the atmosphere that the director setup via the lighting, after all, I am just capturing the images of the show, not re-interpreting via photography.

Girl Scouts Troop 371

I recently had the privilege to photograph Girl Scouts from Troop 371 in Huntington Beach. This was probably one of the easiest photo shoots that I've been involved in. The sun was bright and high but we had the shade of the Huntington Beach Pier to work with, so all went swimmingly smooth!

Fun in the Sun, Sand, and a little fill-flash!  That's what it's all about!