The following series of photographs by Ben Hopper was taken on a construction site in South Tel Aviv. These pictures are the result of an improvised collaboration between a group of Israeli artists and performers. This part of South Tel Aviv borders on the Florentin neighborhood which is considered to be a ‘bohemian’ area, home to a community of young artists. The building under construction in the photographs, between 7-10 stories high, once housed carpentry and glass making workshops, galleries and other spaces, but was evacuated and underwent construction to accommodate new apartments.

The performance event depicted in the series took place on June 14, 2008 and was coordinated by Omer Yechezkel who found the building and came up with the idea of bringing a group of creative people / performers / dancers / circus artists together for an improvised photo shoot. Everyone felt the building was amazing and should be put to use in its ‘empty’ state. The 14th of June was a Saturday which is Shabbat in Israel – that way most of the people (religious or secular) were not at work and the building was accessible (unofficially). All images © copyright of Ben Hopper.

1. From right to left: Ido Cheddar, Sharon Danon, Guy Leon, Maria Fernández, Adam Bezalel

2. Omer Yechezkel.

3. Head-cropped: Omer Yechezkel. Bottom: Adam Bezalel.

4. Top right to left: Sharon Danon, Ido Cheddar. Bottom right to left: Guy Leon, Maria Fernández.

       

5 - 6 Adam Bezalel.

       

7 - 8 Adam Bezalel and Sharon Danon.

       

9 - 10 Ido Cheddar and Omer Yechezkel.

About the Photographer
Ben Hopper is internationally known for his remarkable captures of scenery, movement and mood. He primarily works with magazines; creating conceptual fashion images, portraits of dancers, circus artists, musicians and more. Ben is currently In-House Photographer for The Last Days of Decadence club as well as WHITE MISCHIEF (London, UK).

Current Exhibition
You can see Ben Hopper’s work at the Pangea Project until early June 2010. The exhibition is a collection of 15 Black and White prints (5 limited editions) taken over the last 3 years in Israel, London, France and Switzerland. The pictures involve a mixture of live performance (dance, circus and music), portraits and scenery.

Related links
• Professional Portfolio: see more photos by Ben Hopper.
• Connect with Ben on Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and Flickr.

This series of images by Edinburgh based artist and freelance photographer, Ines Gennuso, is from a project called “Theatre Sets”. Over the course of a year, Gennuso photographed a range of theatre sets across the UK – prior to performances – to explore the way artificial light with its reverberating colours imbues space with a surreal and atmospheric quality. Gennuso was drawn to the theatre as the subject for this project for the way it utilizes artificial light to transform the ordinary into something bold and dramatic, analogous to the way it shifts human emotions from everyday life to the theatre stage.

Gennuso methodically photographed all the theatre sets in the same way, maintaining the same perspective and a tight composition in all the images so as to use a typological approach to explore the spatial realm of theatre. Her art practice focuses on the blurring of theatre and its visual language into photography and it explores the aesthetic conventions and cultural references which define the idea of theatricality. All images © copyright of Ines Gennuso.

1. Looking for Nessie. Talking Heads Puppets. Design by Steve Ross.

2. Fugee. Lyceum Youth Theatre. Design by Xana Maclean and Paul Rodger.

3. The Wall. Borderline Theatre.

4. The Tempest. Strathclyde Theatre Group.

5. Testing the Echo. Out of Joint Theatre. Design by Paul Willis.

6. The Playboy of the Western World. Strathclyde Theatre Group.

7. Jason and the Argonauts. Visible Fictions. Design by Robin Peoples.

8. Great Expectations. Prime Productions. Design by Monika Nisbet.

9. First to Go. Benchtours. Design by Gordon Davidson.

10. Song From the Sea. Visible Fictions. Design by Caroline Grebbell.

About the Photographer
Ines Gennuso is an Edinburgh based artist and freelance photographer. Her art practice focuses on the blurring of theatre and its visual language into photography and it explores the aesthetic conventions and cultural references which define the idea of theatricality. As a freelance photographer she covers a wide range of commercial assignments, including working for theatre and dance productions. Her work has been exhibited at the Singapore International Photography Festival and at the multi-arts venue the Arches in Glasgow.

Related links
• Professional Portfolio: see more photos by Ines Gennuso.

The following series of photographs by Nicolas Havette were taken during the rehearsal of an intercultural dance collaboration between Chumvan Sodhachivy, a Cambodian dance who specializes in the Apsara dance style, and the French dancer/choreographer Sébastien Ramirez. The performers were brought together in the context of the Phnom Penh Hip Hop Festival and had a week to prepare the piece. The concept of superimposed images came initially as a response to a technical lighting constraint before permeating the entire series. To Havette, this was a reminder that technical constraints can often be the source of artistic creation. “This may be somewhat of a modernist approach to photography” remarks Havette, “but I think (photographic) technique should be considered a creative source that has equal bearing on the meaning of the work.” All images © copyright of Nicolas Havette.

1

2

       

3 - 4

5

6

7

8

       

9 - 10

11

12

       

13 - 14

15

16

       

17 - 18

19

20

About the Photographer
Nicolas Havette trained at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie d’Arles, France. Since 2003, he has presented work at a range of international events including Nuit Blanche in Paris, the Angkor festival of photography in Cambodia, the Arles International Photography Festival and more. In 2006, he was appointed ‘Professor of photography’ for the department of media in the Afghan Parliament in Kabul.

Related links
• Professional Portfolio: see more photos by Nicolas Havette.
• sebastienramirez.com: visit the website of choreographer, Sebastien Ramirez.

Malaysian photographer and performance artist, Jemima Yong, presents a series of photos from Wrecked – a production recently performed at Wilton’s Music Hall. Set against the political instability of Nineteenth Century Paris, Wrecked tells the true story of Théodore Géricault. Géricault, an artist whose surviving documents and images help paint the portrait of his dramatic life, is taken from the brink of madness by a doomed love affair to the creation of his greatest painting, The Raft of Medusa. Wrecked was written and directed by John East and Pete Reed of the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. All images © copyright of Jemima Yong.

1

2

3

4

5

6

       

7 - 8

9

       

10 - 11

About the Photographer
Jemima Yong is a performance artist and photographer from Singapore, born in Malaysia and currently residing in London. Part of Yong’s work in photography is concerned in capturing the meeting point between the real and the imagined.

Related links
• Performance Photography: see more photography by Jemima Yong.

In this series, Theatre in Pictures covers one of the oldest facets of theatre/performance: masks. For the past 17 years, professional Canadian mask maker, Douglas R. Witt has been making and teaching masks for theatre, film and television. Through the creation and performance process of mask, Witt is able to explore new cultures, artistic practices and storytelling techniques, and forge lasting bonds with the people he meets on his travels. The following seris of photographs chronicles the creation process for three ‘Hawk masks’ commissioned by the Calgary Stampede festival. All images © copyright of Douglas R. Witt.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

About the Artist
Douglas R. Witt has been working as a mask maker, a teacher of mask and an FX makeup artist for TV, Movie and Theatre for over 10 years. As a professional artist, he has traveled all over his native Canada and parts of the USA. His passions are in creating high end theatre masks and passing on his skills as a traditional mask maker to others. He is driven by his encounters with people from all over the world and the exploration of world cultures through mask making and performance. He is currently seeking opportunities to extend his work from North America to Europe through mask making workshops.

Related links
• School of Witt: Douglas Witt’s professional masketry portfolio.
• Flickr photos: view more images of Douglas’ masks.

Adam Levy is a London-based theatre photographer who, for this series of images, turns his attention to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2009 and a one-woman rendition of August Strindberg’s play The Stronger. The production is directed by Caroline Devlin and performed by Laura Pradelska. This short one-act play unfolds in a “ladies’ cafe” between two female characters Miss X and Miss Y, only one of whom speaks. The Stronger runs until the 31st of August at Jury’s Inn in Edinburgh. All images © copyright of Adam Levy.

      

1 - 2

3

4

      

5 - 6

7

      

8 - 9

About the photographer
Adam Levy has been taking photographs since a young age. It was not long before he combined his passion for photographs with his love of stage, and Adam is now a London based show photographer. In addition, Adam has always had a strong interest for fine art photography, which he still explores both through his theatre work and other projects.

Related links
• Adam Levy: professional photography portfolio.
• The Stronger: production website for Caroline Devline and Laura Pradelska’s fringe play.
• Read the play: read a free version of Strindberg’s The Stronger courtesy of the Gutenberg Project.

The first series of photos to launch the new Theatre in Pictures project is by Alan Eglinton, a Paris-based freelance photographer. The subject is the Japanese Butoh company, Sankai Juku, and their celebrated work Unetsu – The Egg stands out of Curiosity, first performed in 1986. The two kanji that form the word ‘Unetsu’ (卵熱) translate as egg/ovum and heat/fever. The company was founded in 1975 by Amagatsu Ushio and the name ‘Sankai Juku’ translates as ’studio/school between mountain and sea’. Sankai Juku’s work is an important component of the ‘Second Wave’ of Butoh since it began in the 1960s. The photos included here are of a 2006 production at the Vaison-la-Romaine Dance Festival, France. All images are © copyright of Alan Eglinton.

      

1 - 2

      

3 - 4

      

5 - 6

      

7 - 8

9

About the photographer
Born in 1980, Alan Eglinton is a freelance photographer living in Paris and working for publications such as Le Monde and the literary magazine Le Matricule des Anges. He’s developing an on-going photo project about the once-united North and South Korea. www.alaneglinton.com.

Related links
• Alan Eglinton: professional photography portfolio.
• Sankai Juku: official company website.

Welcome to Theatre in Pictures, a project developed and curated by London Theatre Blog to offer graphic insight into the world of theatre. For the past three years, London Theatre Blog has run a flickr photo group called ‘Theatre on Photo‘. Its membership now stands at over 300 photographers and a collection of over 3000 images documenting aspects of theatre from around the world.

A little over a year ago, the Boston Globe Online newspaper launched a site called The Big Picture. The concept was simple, to present news stories from around the globe in large format photographs. As a result the site has showcased some of the most compelling photo journalism on the Web and sparked some of the most engaging reader discussions around the issues evoked through images.

Theatre in Pictures draws inspiration from both of these online resources. The project presents large format photographs that highlight unique aspects of theatre practice from around the world. The project is by no means restricted to covering performers on stage. All aspects of theatre will be considered and the following themes provide a brief overview to the range of possibilities: space, architecture, costume, design, light, audience, rehearsals, masks, movement, festivals, transport, posters, history etc.

The project welcomes open submissions from photographers worldwide. If you are interested in contributing a series of images, please get in touch via the submission page. Details of dimensions and general guidelines for submission are included there. Please also get in touch with any queries or suggestions you may have via the contact page. Happy viewing!