Audience Participation

The above sequence of someone clapping along to an acoustic performance by Mike Peters was taken at this year’s Gathering, the 25th anniversary of this annual event.  I’ve named the sequence “Audience Participation” because it refers to a member of the audience adding a physical movement or sound (through clapping) to the performance.  On reflection though, perhaps the still and silent members of the audience also add something to the performance because the performer will feel the tension associated with needing to entertain and/or perform the music as flawlessly as possible in front of them (I know I have when performing live music).  The audience by their very presence are therefore influencing how the performance is being delivered.  Anyway (!), I just enjoyed the songs being played and was quite happy to have a diminshed view of the performer during the bits when the person in front of me was clapping.  Of course it might’ve been a different matter had they been sitting on someone’s shoulders right in front of me!

By the way, the above images were captured on my Fuji XM-1 and 27mm lens, which is proving to be my main camera/lens combination (I have an XT-10 too).  The “focus peaking” option was used to help with manual focusing on the performer, otherwise the autofocus system would’ve tried locking onto the clapping hands. I’m eventually going to write something about my adoption of the Fuji X system in preference to my now sold DSLR kit….once I’ve recovered from the shock of how my photography life has vastly improved due to the change!