I was once more delighted to be asked to shoot for Burlesque In Underland. This time it was at the Hen and Chickens pub in Highbury and Islington. The venue was similar to the Old Red Lion Theatre in Angel.

I arrived about 15 minutes before curtain up to see where it would be best to sit. I had with me my Canon 24-105mm f4.0 and the Sigma 10-20mm f3.5. While I was up at the back I thought I would be reaching over peoples heads and I may miss the performer’s feet if I shot from way back there. So I went and sat directly at the front. I decided to switch to the Sigma and utilise the wide-angle to get a lot of the main stage in the shot... it could get the whole of the stage in fact as you can see from the shot below of the opening number.

Normally, using the wide-angle you would get distortion, but being this close to the performers there was very little. One consequence of using this lens, it looks like the performers are further away than they actually are. When looking up from time to time it was quite a shock to see them only a couple of feet away!

I like a show that is so good that you do not notice the time passing. This hours performance flew by and I was soon off home on the tube checking and marking off the keeper and rejects. Glad to say a lot of them were keepers! All were packaged and sent off within my self imposed 24-hour time limit. Hate to keep performers waiting.