Portraits Inside An Abandoned Theater

Originally Published December 3, 2013

Meet Ivan. He’s the owner of an old theater in northern Pennsylvania just 15 miles from my family’s cabin. He and his family run and operate their town’s roller skating rink on the first floor of the old theater. I first met Ivan in October 2012 all by chance. He spotted me and my friend Jason snapping photos of the old theater sign out front of the building. He gave us a tour of the entire building, including the top floor which was used as a Masonic Temple meeting place at one time. Ever since then, I’ve been wanting to go back and photograph him in the portion of the theater that still remains original. Just over a year later, I finally had my chance.
While traveling to the mountains for a weekend with friends, I gave Ivan a call. After jogging his memory of how he showed me around his theater, I asked if he would have a few minutes for a quick portrait when I got in his area. A little surprised with the request, he was all for it and opened up the building for me.

The whole shoot was done with two lights powered by my Vagabond Mini. I had one Einstein with a 7-inch reflector and grid placed in where the film projector would be. I did this to make the scene more interesting and make it appear as if a film was actually being played. The second light was an Einstein with a 47-inch octabox that was camera-left. I pointed this light more towards the ceiling (see below) for two reasons. First, I wanted a nice soft light to hit Ivan. Second, I needed to be sure to light the ceiling to show the details of how the building has aged over the years.

To give you a better look at what the inside of the theater looks like, here is a shot I took the first time Ivan gave us a tour of the place. The only available light is from a fire escape door that we opened. Other than that, we were using flashlights and the modeling lights on the strobes to see what we were doing.

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