A few a years ago, I traveled to China regularly and spent a fair amount of time in Beijing. Some of my friends in Beijing took me a restaurant that put on a variety show every evening – the locals referred to as “Chinese Opera”. The shows that I saw usually included a martial arts presentation, a magician, a juggler and a performance of Sichuan “Bian Lian”, a most wonderful art where the performer changes dramatically painted face-masks in what seems like milliseconds, right there, in front of the audience, without any use of their hands. It’s like magic! In one performance that I witnessed, the artist changed 10-12 masks in the space of a minute or so, all without any of us in the audience figuring out how it was done!
This image was made at one of these shows. The light on stage for these performances is constantly changing – both in intensity and color, and the performers are usually moving rapidly, making photography a bit challenging. This one was shot with the Nikon D3 and the Nikkor 70-200 VRI lens. RAW conversion in Aperture.
Please click on the image to view a larger version:
Wow Raaj, I’m very taken by this image. The composition, expression, and post-processing are all perfect. This is certainly one of your very best, my friend!
Peter.
Glad you liked the image, dear Peter. As always, appreciate your kind comments!