Behind the scenes of Cirque du Soleil

Camera: Canon EOS 80D Lens: 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 Focal Length: 79mm Exposure: 1/250; f/5.6; ISO 2000

KAMLOOPS, B.C. - Marie-Christine Mernard-Bergeron bursts into laugher after taking a tumble from the bar she was swinging on. Oct. 24, 2018 (iNFOnews.ca/Shelby Thevenot)

The Cirque du Soleil public relations offered Kamloops media complementary passes to the opening night of Corteo.

When I gave my RSVP I also asked if I could come back stage to do a “behind the scenes” story of the performers and technical crew. The company had sectioned off four hours the afternoon of opening night on Friday, Oct. 24, 2018. When I arrived I was greeted by the touring publicist, Max Batista, and I asked him if there was anything I was not allowed to shoot.

My only condition was that I was not allowed to use flash because it could compromise the safety of the performers.

Fair enough.

The lighting was horrible, and because the light was so coloured I did not know how to custom white balance. I trusted automatic this time.

I also allowed my exposure to be a bit on the low side, just enough so that I could bump it up in post.

The time came where Max brought me to the front of the stage. He let me stay there and take pictures while he let another media outlet in. I stood there, rather far away at first thinking I should be getting the full range of motion.

I found it was better if I was actually zoomed in a little more. If the zoom was too wide sure it showed what shapes the performers made with their bodies, but I wanted to see their faces and expressions while doing flips.

The acrobats who were practicing at that time were mostly male, but then one woman came in. I was at the right spot as she jumped on to the bar and started swinging. I was able to capture her facial expressions and the frame was wide enough to fill in the context.

Suddenly she fell and burst into laughter. I was in the right place at the right time to capture her expression. She looked right at me and said, “I hope you weren’t filming that!”

I assured her I wasn’t and we went our separate ways. In retrospect, I should have asked her name at that moment.

Instead I got lucky and hung around long enough to meet her back stage to ask her if it was OK for me to use her picture in my publication. She accepted and we chatted a little bit.

Her name is Marie-Christine Mernard-Bergeron, and she has been doing gymnastics since she was six years old. She started in diving, then moved to gymnastics, trampoline and eventually went to circus school in Quebec City.

She told me she was inspired to pursue a career working for Cirque du Soleil after she watched Varekai, and now she has worked with them for about seven years.

That night I saw her in the show playing as a girl in pink pyjamas and a golf ball.

I chose not to use this photo as the main image for the photo story. It is missing a lot of context and doesn’t really say, “Cirque du Soleil” at first glance. In any case I think it is my favourite photo from the story.

Self-critique

I wish the frame were wider, the photo seems heavy on the bottom left. Though her smile is wide her eyes are closed it might have been better if I caught her eyes open. It does seem a little blue to me, however I think it works in the context of the overall photo story. The focus seems to be most sharp on her mouth, it would have been better on the eyes. I normally shoot at a shutter speed of 1/500, I wonder if doing that this time would have frozen the hands better.

If you have any questions or critiques of this photo, please let me know your thoughts by leaving a comment below or sending me an email via the contact page.