March 9, 2019

Dope Comedy - Womansplaining

This past weekend I photographed another awesome comedy show by Dope Comedy called Womansplaining. The show was at The Ugly Mug in Southeast Washington, D.C. Working with these guys is always quite a challenge for me as they comedians are absolutely hilarious and it makes my job difficult in that I have to keep a steady hand to get sharp photos. For mood purposes, of course the lights are dimmed and I find myself having to shoot at a very low shutter speed. I do prefer to use a flash, but I’ve learned that when I do this it is almost guaranteed that I will become a subject of the skit. Therefor I do my best to remain pretty low key using natural light. I really enjoy photographing comedy shows because the subjects are much more expressive than your average podium speaker. I really admire how brave comedians are. They just get up there and it’s like free reign to say whatever they want, though that doesn’t mean it’s an easy thing to do. There are moments when the crowd is really into everything then suddenly it’s quiet. There’s a lot of pressure to actually get laughs from the crowd! I’m happy to be behind my camera during this whole process. I do really enjoy when the comedians are very funny, because then I can get awesome crowd reaction shots. Also because everyone in the room is laughing and that’s just pure bliss. I love my job.