Pixiq

 One of the dances that Bali is famous for is the Kecak dance.  It can consist of 50 or 60 people and it’s highly stylized and quite fascinating to see.  The problem in photographing it as a tourist is that it is performed at night with very dim illumination, and if you use on-camera flash from the audience, the pictures are never satisfactory.  The foreground is much lighter than the background, and instead of seeing a temple environment behind the performers, the background turns out to be black. 

The photo you see here is one that I wanted to take for many years.  I had attended several Kecak dance performances in the past, but I was never happy with my images.  Last July I led a photo tour to Indonesia, and I was determined to set up the classic shot for my group.  Through a taxi driver, I made contact with the director of the dance group that performs this dance nightly.  I envisioned photographing the dancers in the late afternoon when the sun was so low in the sky that it was no longer a factor (I did not want direct sunlight at all), but it had to be bright enough so we had enough light for photography without the use of flash.  I chose five o’clock in the afternoon and specified that this was ‘American time’, not ‘rubber time’, the Indonesian idiom that meant it could be anywhere between five and eight o’clock.  The manager of the dance troup agreed, and we negotiated a price and shook hands.

I returned with my photo tour group at 4:45pm, and the dancers were putting their finishing touches on of makeup.  I told the manager that I didn’t want the dancers to dance or even to move once they assumed a traditional pose.  I wanted them to imply they were dancing but remain motionless.  In this way, we didn’t need to use fast shutter speeds to freeze movement. 

When you set something like this up, you become the director.  You tell the performers exactly what you want, and they do it.  For example, when the two Balinese girls in the middle of the male dancers were not exactly centered, I directed them to move a few inches to one side or the other. I also told them how close to be to each other, where to look, and what direction to face. If the arms of the men weren’t raised high enough, I asked them to extend them higher.  If there was an unwanted element in the background that could be seen in my wide angle lens, either I removed it or I asked one of the Balinese to move it out of the frame.

This is how I get perfect pictures for myself and for my groups in exotic locations.  First I have to know what the culture offers, and then it’s a matter of finding the person or people who can make it happen. Is it possible to take great pictures during a real performance?  Yes, but to be honest, probably not as perfect as this. I had seen many wonderful Kecak dances, but due to the low light atmosphere and where I was sitting (I was not able to sit dead-center to capture this kind of symmetry), I couldn't capture this classic image until I made the effort and spent the money to make it happen.

I used a 24-105mm lens for this shot, and my ISO was 200.  The exposure data is 1/125, f/8, hand held.

Here is a direct link to the next scheduled photo tour to Indonesia:

http://www.jimzuckerman.com/blog/photo-tour-to-indonesia-july-14-july-29...