The annual Anchorage Community Chorus performance of The Messiah took place at West High School on Sunday, December 5th.

West High have recently been renovating their auditorium and the work is almost complete. The renovations have helped to make it a much nicer venue for not only school plays, but community events like the Messiah performance. However, I discovered one thing that will drive photographers crazy. It appears that each light on stage have different gels on them. This is fine for viewing a performance, but for photography, not so much. On the edges of the stage I saw a variety of different colors in my images, mainly reds, but some blues and greens mixed in. Now, where these different colored lights came together, the look was fantastic. It will probably be ok for photographing plays, but when you have almost 200 people (community chorus, soloists and an orchestra) taking up the entire stage, ugh, no two pictures side by side had the same look I wanted. But that was my problem. The singers, the musicians, and the audience did not have to worry about my issues, and they all seemed to enjoy the performance.

I have photographed the chorus before, but this time was special for me. My sister, who started college when I first moved to Alaska (before I started kindergarten), was this years conductor.

To view all the images from the Messiah performance or to buy copies, please visit the 2010 Messiah Gallery