Press Photos... Step One

At Second Wind we use a two-step process for press photos (I don't think that's particularly uncommon, but it took me a while to accept it as natural). To be honest, we don't do our first round of photos as extensively, or as early as we probably should. The truly ambitious shoot their photos three months in advance. The idea behind early photos is to have visuals ready to promote the show for monthly publications. However, shooting photos that far ahead of opening feels so disjointed and inorganic to me that I've resisted. I'm not connected to the show yet; I may not even be cast yet let alone have images in my head. So we take time out during our first week of rehearsals to shoot just a handful of shots that we can use.

Since I haven't staged anything yet, I refer to my "visual palette" for ideas-- I wrote a blog on it here. And I did a piece on elements of a successful press photo here. Today's entry is a behind-the-scenes ditty on the early press photos for The Tender King.

A tip for making your show images easier to find on the internet: Right click on the file, go into properties, and given each image a clear title, name, and tags. They're searchable.