D  e  s  e  r  t     E  x  p  o  s  u  r  e     July 2005

Every Picture Tells a Story

Theatrical photographer Tom Price's goal is to be invisible—and to make the on-stage creative process visible to the rest of us.

By Jessica J. Savage

Hiding in the shadows, waiting for his cue. . . but when he makes his entrance he hopes to be neither seen or heard. That's the modus operandi of available-light photographer Tom Price when he's capturing his favorite subject—theatrical rehearsals.

For the last year Price has been exhibiting his photos at the Black Box Theatre in Las Cruces, where he photographs the rehearsals. (You've seen the results in the "40 Days and 40 Nights" events section in Desert Exposure.) Next month, an exhibit of his photographs will open at the Corbett Center Gallery on the NMSU campus. He refers to his exhibits as "photo essays," because Price is not shooting frame after frame trying to get the perfect picture, so much as he's telling a story of what goes on behind the scenes in the making of a play.

Kirsten Chavez in the Lyric Opera's production of Carmen, part of an exhibit of photos by Tom Price opening at the NMSU Corbett Center in August.

"This to me is a story," Price says. "It's the story of how creative people work hard and make magic."

It all begins for Price at the first reading, when the actors gather in a bare room, sit in a circle and read through the play. Just when the play is beginning for the audience—after the dress rehearsal with a full set, costumes and actors in full character—it's over for Price.

As the rehearsals evolve, Price blends into the scenery and everyone forgets he's even there. He's quietly shooting his subjects from 30 feet away, using whatever light is available naturally—no distracting flash.

Price says what he does takes him back to his boyhood, when he would look through the pages of Life magazine or the National Geographic.

Photographing the rehearsal process impresses Price as he watches the thespians become the characters they will portray, as the stage manager decides how to orchestrate the production, as the director encourages the actors to understand their characters' histories, as the set is built and the costumes sewn.

"From beginning to end, there are several stories that run through the whole process," he says.

It was Price's late wife Judy who was the live theater and musical enthusiast in the family, who first got him to attend productions. But it was by accident that Price got bitten by the photography bug.

"It started in 1990 when I started taking pictures with a pocket camera on black-and-white film," Price recalls. He was then a political science professor at the University of Texas at El Paso; one year Price decided to photographically document the academic year and show the resulting pictures at graduation. Over the year he took classes and workshops in darkroom development, photography and matting and framing the finished work. "It was process of realizing I could do this," he says.

Photography was a hobby that Price could take up when he retired from teaching in 2001, but he didn't know how much he would need it until later. He initially expected to spend all his time post-retirement caring for his wife, who was undergoing treatment for cancer. A few months later, she unexpectedly succumbed to her illness and Price was left a recently retired widower with a lot of time on his hands.

"Photography became a way to handle time," Price says. "I had 24 hours a day to fill up. I had been playing with photography and decided to spend more time on it. It was a way to satisfy the workday cycle."

One wall of Price's downstairs studio is filled with books, many the published works of other photographers. Throughout the room and adjoining bathroom/darkroom are projects in various stages of completion. That other people want to see his work—something the 64-year-old amateur photographer still sees as a hobby—has Price astounded. "I'm dumbfounded that people want to put me on their walls," he says.

He's trying to weed 150 photographs of the rehearsal of the Mark Medoff-directed Carmen down to 40 for the Corbett Center Gallery's August exhibit— his biggest yet. He'd been cutting the mattes and preparing the frames for "The Grand Illusion," his third installment of a three-part annual cycle of exhibits Price does at the Black Box Theatre, where he does most of his work. The night before he had attended the full production of Midsummer Night's Dream—the first time he had seen it in sequence after photographing the rehearsals.

Always in some stage of production, Price works at his hobby full-time. "The Grand Illusion" exhibit runs through the end of August and represents the people behind the scenes of a play. The first installment showed the development of several plays from first read through dress rehearsal, while the second showed set construction from beginning to tear-down after the play's run.

Some folks like to take photos of landscapes, but for Price photographing rehearsals is the opportunity to capture people—actual people in the creative process of their passion. "It goes back to Life magazine," he say. "It's the people."

A few photographs hang on the PVC pipes Price puts up in the bathroom/darkroom when it's time to make prints. "I'm a craftsman of the older style," he says. "When I see images emerging on paper, I'm taken back to being a kid."

Because he photographs spontaneous live action using only what lighting is available in rehearsals, he shoots and develops T-Max 3200 black-and-white film at 1600 speed. This is a technique called "pulling"—shooting and developing at a slower speed than the maximum for that film. For Price this is fast enough to capture an image with less grain, which enhances contrast and depth.

He began shooting with a 25-year-old manual Minolta X700 with 50mm and 135mm lenses. To escape the loud-sounding shutter of his Minolta, he now uses a manual Leica Rangefinder with 50mm and 135mm lenses.

Every part of the process is done by hand without electronic or digital technology. He shoots with manual settings including the focus. He develops his own film, making his own prints right in his bathroom and even constructing his own frames.

Price doesn't sell his photographs, but he will give prints if someone is willing to make a donation to the theater group and a matching donation to the scholarship in his late wife's name. The Judith McManus Price Scholarship, administered by the American Planning Association, encourages women and minorities to enter public sector planning

Judy would probably laugh if she could see her husband now, Price says. "She'd laugh at the stuff I take seriously." But it's important to Price to promote art in the area and he has a great sense of awe about what he's doing.

"I know there's a picture here, so I keep shooting," he says. "Photography is amazing because it stops time—a violation of physics."

Behind the scenes of a play, where everyone is working hard to create a fictional world for their audience, there's also a man working hard to conceal his presence so everyone involved in the production forgets he's even there—until his exhibit of photographs goes up.

"I just want to promote the arts," Price says. "Everyone works so hard for weeks and months on a production that only lasts for two weeks."

Jessica J. Savage is a freelance writer living in Las Cruces. She works at White Sands Missile Range and is a publicist for the astronomy outreach organization, the National Public Observatory.

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