Have I mentioned how much I love living in the Bay Area? Where else I could find an event quite like The Crucible’s red hot Romeo and Juliet Fire Ballet?

I’ll be honest here – I am not likely to ever attend a “real” opera. This sort of music/theater springs from a level of consciousness I have never been able to attain. I know I’d be as confused as I would be at a Grateful Dead concert. I just don’t get it.

Now, take your average opera and throw in a few sexy flame swallowers and a little molten metal, and suddenly it all makes sense! A spectacle created just for for thedude. Both Grant and myself gave the performance a thumbs up. Big fun!

This was one of the most difficult photo shoots I’ve ever done. I had a seat in the fourth row and could not move from my seat. The lighting alternated between almost total darkness to the blinding light of a small thermonuclear device. This is the first time I have ever shot with my camera set on ISO 1200. I wanted to portray motion, but get some sort of in-focus shots. I could not rely on auto-focus in the darkness, so I focused manually. To give myself some depth-of-focus, I shot on shutter priority most of the night – in the 1/10 to 1/30 of a second range. What a challenge!

Oh – and the famous Crucible fire truck was in action before the show. I shot a picture of a young man and handed him my card. Just in case you actually came to my site, here’s the picture of the fireball you sent skyward.