Royal Festival Hall - Behind The Scenes
- Michael Whitefoot
- Mar 9
- 2 min read
I was recently booked to photograph the Bach Choir and London Youth Choir perform St Matthews Passion by JS Bach in the Royal Festival Hall in London.
This would involve 7 hours of driving, a 2am start to make sure I could get through the heart of London and find parking and an emission charge of £21 for just being there!
Car parking was easy as Joe from the Bach Choir told me the best place to park on a Sunday.
I approached the artists entrance of the RFH at 5:30am to just get a feel for where it was and see what time it opened. To my astonishment I found it already open and someone was behind a reception desk with my name on a list to get an all areas pass. Impressed already!
I had already received some do's and dont's from the South Bank Events Manager Becky so I understood my limitations on moving around the venue during a performance. What I didnt appreciate was the event was a sell out and 2498 people would be in the audience paying over £50 per ticket so I felt even more that I could not be seen.
After scouting the venue I decided to put myself behind the choir and facing the conductor and audience for the first half giving me photos below.
I based myself on the crossover aisle for the second half which gave me the images below.
Kit used : 3 x Sony A9 bodies with 400mm f2.8 lens, 24-70mm f2.8 lens and 70-210mm f2.8 lens.
This kit gave me a huge range of options from capturing the whole choir to a soloist and given the lighting conditions it was needed.
I produced 160 ish images of subjects as requested and given the restrictions I was very pleased with the results
Some behind the scenes images show where I based myself and the column I hid behind
