Purple Silk Music w/ Lumix - 6/24/2012

I happened to be at Ala Moana and saw people gather around the centerstage and wonder what everyone was waiting for. Then I saw this group dressed in traditional Chinese clothing w/ traditional instruments.  This group of students from the Purple Silk Music Education Foundation is from Oakland who lives in high risk neighborhoods and the program teaches them music through traditional Chinese Instruments.

I only had my Lumix so I thought I'd test it out on this usually difficult lighting shoot. I was shooting and checking my shots that my camera battery got really hot. It was a tough shoot, but I managed to take a bunch of shots and with some editing fixes got these shots.

Some played the Erhu.  The teacher explained that they choose instruments based on the student's ability to hear music.  Those who are able to hear music pitch well will play string instruments and those who likes to talk will play woodwind instruments because they can't talk and play music at the same time. 

Most girls play the Pipa.  I'm not sure what that round instrument is called.

They played the mouth organ. It sounded really cool..kind of like cross between an accordion and a harmonica.  Most of my pics came out dark and I tried to increase the ISO or EV settings, but it didn't help.   My camera info was showing shutter speed 1/40 for some of the shots so movement was not good to shoot.  

I wanted to get pics of others in the back of the orchestra so I went upstairs.  Although a good vantage point, I had to avoid people's heads as they went up the escalator.

I tried max zoom to see how close I could get..  I was able to get some closeups but they were a bit grainy.  There's just not enough light in the stage area.

I tried to shoot some of the players in the back row and did some cropping.  I had to lighten this a bit since the metering on the Lumix made this really dark. 

The little girl performed 'Somewhere over the Rainbow'

These two sisters played some kind of dueling piece on the Guzheng, similar to the Koto but have 23 strings.

Again, I tried max zoom.. pretty noisy.

This guy actually sang a mandarin Chinese song.  He's supposed to be dressed as a famous Chinese Judge, Judge Bao, who is supposed to have a crescent shaped birth mark on his forehead.

He played a Hawaiian song w/ this leaf.  I wasn't sure I would get a good zoom shot of the leaf but I managed to get one.

I found this guy playing some Chinese bell instrument.  Overall, It was one tough shoot but I managed to fix the level and added some color saturation back in PSE.  This is one of those times I wish I had my Canon.. or better yet, if I only had a Canon 5D Mark III.. ha!