Dance Photography
I’m excited to show you some dance photography that I’ve been doing lately. Here is the beautiful Ella – a 12 year old ballerina (just turned 13 now) who did some amazing dancing for me in my studio. Ella’s Mum wanted her to have a shoot for her 13th birthday. She wore a lovely black leotard and ballet shoes. We started with some very simple dance positions and then moved on to leaps and other moves.
Floaty Material
Ella and her Mum had brought along some beautiful purple material but it was a bit too heavy to throw up and get a great effect, so I managed to find some very floaty white material which worked so well in some of the shots.
Nerves
At first Ella was quite nervous, but she soon got the hang of having her photo taken. It’s actually incredibly fun having a shoot. I let Ella take her time to adjust to my studio. I also suggested a few things to start with. Dance photography is about experimenting with different moves the dancer has been learning. Ella ended up taking charge and remembered what she had learnt in dance class. She started doing a lot of moves and trying and was so amazing to photograph. In the future I’m going to learn some ballet terminology, watch some youtube videos about dance and all of this will help me to understand how a dancer is moving and I’ll be able to suggest what moves to try and when to take the perfectly timed shot.
Learning about Lighting
I went to an amazing live shoot at NZIPP Infocus photography conference last July, run by Stephan Bollinger. He is an extremely talented dance and portrait photographer from Australia. My mouth dropped open as he explained the lighting and something in my brain clicked. It wasn’t actually as hard as I thought. Well, it is still hard as both photographer and dancer have to have the exact timing required to get the perfect photo, but it wasn’t a mind blowingly difficult setup in terms of lighting.
First subject
Ella is the first subject that I’ve experimented on using his lighting. I’ve done a bit of dance photography before for Silhouette Dance Studios. Some of the photos turned out super amazing and some were not quite what I wanted due to not fully understanding the lighting setup, but now I understand the lighting a lot better and am so excited to now offer dance photography!
I’ve found that using a dance studio is probably better than my own small studio. So if anyone wants to have a fun dance shoot, I’m fully portable and ready to come to the studio for some fun! It would be something fun to do together as a group.
A Mum and Daughter Day Out
Ella and her Mum had a lovely day. Ella’s Mum threw the fabric in the air on several photos and helped out a lot in the studio. Then after the shoot was finished, they both went out for a girls lunch. Such a lovely thing to do when there are several children in the one family, to have a treat day with just one child!
Anyway here are the awesome photos of Ella. We ended with some very beautiful dance shots and some classic portraits. The bunch of flowers are winter roses from my garden. I had a spark of inspiration and picked this bunch at the last minute. It is probably one of my favourite photos.
