The Theatre Royal

No-Man’s-Lands Journal Day 12 (Travel Diary Day 278)

Silence greeted me as I entered the auditorium. An explosion of familiar reds and yellows flooded over me. I’d been to Theatre Royal in Newcastle many times but never had I heard it so silent. It seemed wrong that I should be there. This was, however, a location I’d been wanting to shoot for what seemed like a lifetime.

I’d written to the theatre a few days beforehand, asking if I could take pictures inside. They promptly replied with a positive response and only one request: I offer them my photos for their use. Naturally I was more than happy to agree.

Being a local lad, even one that rarely visits the Toon, I hold an immense pride at what I consider the unknown treasures of Newcastle. The Theatre Royal, while well-known to us Geordies and people within the theatre business, isn’t a famous building. Yet, I remember the first show I went to see at the venue. I was mesmerised by the decor, the regal colours, the whispers of the audience and sounds of people backstage shuffling here and there.

When I first immersed myself into the world of HDR photography, I couldn’t get the idea of shooting in the theatre out of my head. I’ve travelled a lot, taken pictures of some wonderful things, but this morning I had butterflies in my stomach when I was on my way to the theatre.

I was greeted at a small office out back, by a friendly chap who gave me a key. And that was it, I was given access to explore the wonderful building alone. And explore I did, for one fantastic hour, without distraction. I found it inspirational to photograph a place with such history, where many an artist has pushed his or her audience to both laughter and tears.

I just hope that this image, and future images, do justice to beauty that is the Theatre Royal.

The Cool Bits – Technical Info

Processing Time: 2 hours
Processing method: Photomatix & Luminance Masks
No. of Exposures: 3
EV Range: -2 0 +2
Aperture: f/9
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 10mm
Lens: Sigma 10-20mm
Camera: Canon 60d
Plugins: Nik Color Efex for Contrast adjustments, and shift in lighting.
Luminance Masks: Used to create fine contrast adjustments for highlighted areas like the lamps and midtones.
Photomatix settings: Choose Default. Increase Strength to 100, Decrease Saturation to 35, Luminosity to 1, Lighting Adjustments to 5, White Point to 0 and Gamma to 86.

Join Me on Facebook or Google+

Today’s Photo – The Theatre Royal, Newcastle

This is my first image of the theatre from the upper tier. The shot presented a few challenges. The biggest difficulty was the intense amount of chromatic aberration present around all of the lights. Using mid-range wide-angle at it’s widest focal distance and under instances of extreme contrast will do that to your image.

I basically had to paint and clone the CA out once I’d made adjustments in ACR.

Tip of the Day – Avoiding Over-Saturation

Over-saturation is one of the biggest problems with a lot of HDR photography out there. Fluorescent green grass and trees are generally the marker for what many to consider bad HDR.

To avoid this, simply keep your Saturation down to 40 or below in Photomatix. In Photoshop pay close attention to Blend Modes, especially Luminosity, in this case.

For example, while creating various contrast adjustment layers in Photoshop for this image, the reds became for too over-saturated to the point where they were cartoony. So I simply changed the Blend Mode of these layers to Luminosity, which means you keep the contrast adjustments of those layers without affecting the colours!

Available Tutorials:

Beginner’s HDR tutorial

Digital Blending HDR Tutorial