Miss Saigon

Photo by Michael Le Poer Trench and Matthew Murphy

In September of 1989, the musical Miss Saigon opened at theTheater Royal in London, and subsequently debuted on Broadway in 1991. In an iconic scene depicting the fall of  Saigon and the evacuation of the U.S. Embassy, a reproduction of a Huey arrives on stage and is seen airlifting the last evacuees from the compound. And to add to the indignity, the choppers, after discharging their passengers on waiting ships at sea, were shown on the news being unceremoniously dumped into the ocean, as if to emphasize the one-way nature of their last flights.

I suppose it was no accident that the stylized calligraphy on the publicity poster faintly resembles a doomed Huey "slick" plunging back to earth after completing its final mission.

Segue To 2018.  A new production of Miss Saigon is traveling across the country and is currently in San Francisco. As such, it rates a mention in the Journal's entertainment section. As it turned out, members of the cast would be visiting EMU Incorporated, a Hayward-based, non-profit organization that maintains a fully restored Bell UH-1 helicopter, the same chopper that figured so prominently in our collective memories of the war. 

First Shot: Cast members were invited to climb aboard EMU 309, and once inside four actors, Joven Calloway, Jonelle Margallo, Brandon Block, and Michael Russell, spontaneously decided that a selfie was required to immortalize the event. As soon as I saw that Mr. Calloway had decorated his smartphone with the iconic Miss Saigon logo, I knew I had my shot.

Technical Note: This photo was made using a flash bounced off the wall behind me. The mixture of natural ambient and artificial light made for a strange color mix, and since I had a white(ish) wall behind me, I decided to use it. The setup wasn't perfect, as there was some fall-off on the subjects who were farthest from the door.

Preflight: After a while, the great bird was rolled out onto the field and prepared for takeoff. The ground crew began its meticulous preflight check, and in a few minutes, the cast members were allowed to board the helicopter. Due to the noise, everybody was issued hearing protection. One additional passenger was  Torque, EMU 309's K9 Mascot. Torque took his place by the door, and would be secured by a harness when in flight. He was obviously eager to join the cast, and quickly made friends with everybody.

Torque is both a unit mascot and a reminder of the valuable service dogs played during the conflict, having served as scouts, trackers, sentries, and mine and booby trap detectors.

Final Shot: Just before the first flight took off, the cast and EMU crew members posed for a group shot. I waited until everybody else had made their own photos, and then proceeded to tighten up the group to make my shot. Again, flash was essential for bringing out the details that would otherwise be lost in shadows. Shots made under similar lighting circumstances without supplementary flash often suffer from highlight overexposure when the photographer attempts to improve shadow detail. A shoe-mounted flash, combined with the small amounts of existing ambient, added just enough detail without looking over-lit or unnatural.

So Where's Torque? For me, the photo was a near miss because of Torque's position in the group photo. A black dog sitting in front of two cast members in dark clothing rendered him almost invisible. Doh!

Next time, I'll invite the two gentlemen in white to move to positions behind Torque so that he could be seen. And I'm sure I could have convinced Mr. Vest to remove it so that Torque could have his moment in the limelight!

X-70 Backup: Ever since I installed a filter and fixed lens hood on my X-70, I feel totally comfortable letting it ride around inside my camera bag uncased. Easily accessible, it's ready to go in the event the sunlight gets totally out of hand and a flash supplemented exposure of 1/500 of a second or faster is required. Granted, I am sure to flinch if the filter is ever scratched (I went with a moderately expensive B&W UV), but the assurances that the front element of the lens being properly protected are worth the cost.

From Page 20 of the October 19, 2018 on-line edition

Japanese Culture Day 2018

West Meets East: I attended Millbrae's Japanese Culture Day intending to make a photograph that combined as many elements that illustrated the celebration of the eastern and western dynamic. When I noticed that the backdrop featured both American and Japanese flags, it was an easy go-to background to help build on that theme. I watched a number of performances and settled on this dancer performing a traditional Japanese folk dance. From where I crouched, a perfect combination of composition, context, and expression was not possible, but I believed this photo was the best compromise of these three qualities.

Mayor-San: One of the guests was Komei Kawata, mayor of Hanyu, Japan. He was giving a welcoming speech to the many guests when I noticed the twin flags at the podium. Again, I included them in the composition, but because of my position, was unable to "move them closer". Like the shot at the top of the page, I was pretty much stuck in one location, and while it worked for my dancer, it wasn't optimal for the Mayor. 

Incidentally, the hat was a paper origami construction large enough to wear, and had no special significance, according to an aide to the Japanese Consulate, who was in attendance.

Kids: Okay, this was my attempt at shameless pandering to readers whose kids might make it to the front page photo. In this case, I still had the flags, and hoped that the adult coaches (Did you see the man crouching behind his daughter?) would add a bit to the back story.

I submitted this second shot because of the interaction between the singers and the woman at the  right. Her posture and expression were better than the first sample, and while I had enough pixels to crop it tighter, I felt that the more children, the better. I'm sure that there are dozens of grandparents who are thankful that I included so many of the little darlings.

Making Mochi: In this photo, taken through an opening in the tent's mesh walls, we see two volunteers using mallets to pound rice flour until it reaches a doughy consistency. It will be formed by hand into the familiar balls of mochi. In this shot, the mallet is not easily recognized, so it wasn't submitted. Also, there was a lot of empty space, which I try to avoid.

I was restricted from entering the food preparation area, so most of these shots had me reaching through openings in the tent with a Fuji X70 held high overhead. I used an Nikon SB-80 aimed into the ceiling with a paper plate used as a bounce card. In this case, the tent provided a low bouncing surface, so the plate was more of a fill card.

I submitted this photo as an illustration of a step in the process. It has the advantage of illustrating the attention of the two subjects, although what they're actually doing requires a detailed caption.

Editor's Choice: In the end, the Editor In Chief chose this photo to run on Page 1 of the Wednesday edition. I almost gave up on any of the photos making the paper, but there is something to be said about the universal appeal of kids performing on stage for what may be their very first time.

Time To Go: The party was still going strong when I finally left at 2:00 pm. I wanted to get some lunch before heading back to the city to process and submit the day's take. I photographed this young lady partly out of envy, as I often wish that happiness could be found by simply wearing a top with my favorite animal and eating/drinking a bowl of Hawaiian shaved ice.