Back to the Teatro Lope de Vega to meet with two famous Spanish flamenco singers.
The teatro is really quite lovely.

Interior of Teatro Lope de Vega Seville

But for me it’s not where I want to be !
I attended a photo call here last night to shoot pix of Jesus Mendez and Antonio Reyes.
Undoubtedly fine singers, they were sat on the stage in what is probably the standard layout for a staged flamenco performance.
However this does not make for good pictures.
The photographers are confined to the orchestra pit area and our opportunity to change angle, approach or improve the lighting is so limited as to be non existent.
Too far away and microphones obscure many angles.
The lighting is no doubt fine for a stage performance but the mix and direction of light is such that the faces appear badly shadowed and unnaturally coloured. The lighting director was trying too hard for a “spectacular” effect.
Blue rimmed hair and red accent lights. Not nice.
So I have rendered the shots of the artists in black and white to alleviate some of the more irritating effects.
Level of lights were of course low: once again 2000 asa to get f2.8 at a 1/100th on the 70- 200mm
Do-able but would prefer not to have to deal with so many artefacts generated by such a high ISO and high contrast lighting.
That’s why, when I got home (my little room 2 miles walk up in the north of the city), I decided to wash and go scouring the streets of Triana (across the Guadalquivir river) for a bar or club that would give me some real atmosphere. Although I might not find the quality of performance at least I may get some air of reality into the pictures.
Well I was unlucky. Perhaps with better knowledge I may have found the “real thing” but despite my best efforts I never once heard the sound of a flamenco guitar coming from a bar. I tried several locations that I had read about and they were all closed. One had been knocked down !
Today I decided to chance my arm and go out of the city for a bit and visit Granada.
I’m told (by my flamenco hero Tony Bryant) that there are some good “peñas” and “tablaus” to be found in the Albaicin area.
So that’s what I’m going to do.
Tonight however I shall return to the damned photo-call scene to shoot Estrella Morente, another of the great female singers. Lets see if I can do better there.
Meanwhile Here’s a couple of shots from last night – sorry they’re not what I hoped for, the pain on the faces of the singers was nothing compared to the faces I was pulling !!