When I first heard that Ohana Arts was putting on a production of "The Wizard of Oz," I was both curious and excited - the film version of the story is a cherished part of my movie collection, and is part of my regular rotation of favorites. How were they going approach this? Would it be grandoise? Minimalist? How close to the source material could this group take it?
Enter, play director Cari Taira. We met at Starbucks a few months back to discuss photography for her upcoming wedding. As do many of my "business" meetings, discussions turned casual and we began to converse about other things - the realities of weddings and the wedding buisness, common friends, theater... I shared about my experiences being on stage a few times and experiences I had photographing stage spectacles such as “The Marriage of Figaro,” last year.
Now, I had originally pre-enrolled my son to be a part of the Ohana Arts summer program, but scheduling didn't quite work out this year. At that point, I thought my involvement would occur strictly as part of the audience, but fortunately, I was able to sell (I almost hate using that word here) Cari on the value of photos. Weeks later I am backstage photographing what I thought was, in the end, a pretty grand, very amazing adaption of the Oz. I'm hoping my photos do it justice!
