Today I had one of my first true attempts at trying to photograph dance. I worked with Tricia a friend, model, and dancer. She's been studying dance since the age of three but doesn't do it professionally. I had a lot of troubling lighting a big music room and figuring out the lighting is where I spent 3/4 of my time.
STROBIST INFO:
Two Alienbee AB400's firing through umbrellas at 1/1 into the wall behind. One Nikon SB25 and one Canon 580EXII both firing bare at 1/8th on the left and right of the Tricia. Camera at ISO 400, 1/250th shutter speed, and F5 or F8 depending on the photo.
The last photo shows your lighting well - 3 shadows on the floor. It also shows no shadow behind her, so that means no light is hitting the front of her. She appears dark and underexposed in these shots, except for lighting on the right and left.
I think you need a main light 45 (not 90) degrees camera right or left.
EDIT: Make sure you read Chuck's post, just below this one. He knows lighting much better than I.
These nicely capture the action but are more 2D silhouettes than 3D renderings. The illusion of shape in a 2D photo of 3D objects, like an egg or the overall shape of a dancer's body, is best revealed by lights placed behind the subject about 135 degrees from the camera angle, not in front or directly to the sides.
Just consider how the appearance of the moon changes from flat disk when flat lit and full, to looking like a ball when only lit with a narrow band of highlight wrapping around its shape with most of the area facing the eye in shadow. Or just take an egg on a table, set up a single light, then walk around the egg to visualize what angle of light creates the strongest illusion of 3D shape...
To reveal the detail on the front of the subject you need fill light from the direction of the camera to lift the shadows. The amount of fill will modulate how much detail is revealed.
Also note how in your last shot which does have more rim lighting than the first two how the highlights on the face get lost into the similar background? If you want to reveal the shape of the dancer with the back-rim lighting you will need to contrast the rim-lit figure with a darker background, not white. Given the fact her leotard is black a middle gray background would actually be better than white for revealing her shape with a combination of rim-light highlights and flat frontal fill.
So given the same equipment and the opportunity to reshoot you might try just using one of the ABs to light the background, creating a light gray to darker gray spotlight effect on a darker background rather than a uniform white background, put your two speedlights more behind the dancer than directly to the sides but flagged to prevent lens flare, then use your other AB with umbrella up over the camera to reveal as much or little frontal detail as you desire, keeping in mind photos of people are always more interesting when the eyes and facial expression can be clearly seen.
The contrast of the wood floor and black moulding and the white wall also is cutting her in half. You could use white muslin to cover the floor for the static shots (it comes in 10' wide lengths, is cheap, and can be found at most Walmat stores with fabric sections). That wouldn't work for the actions shots (safety issue) but for those a lower camera angle to get her above completely above the black line would allow you to Photoshop in the foreground to eliminate the distraction.
When I saw the image and read your description of the lighting, I had thought that you might want to try a reversal of your lighting scheme. You've put all the big guns on the light background to push it to white, and left yourself under-powered for the subject. Steady's idea of converting to Black & White Silhouettes is a good one, but if you used your AB400s to light the subject, and use your speedlights to lower the background contrast, you might end up with a stronger result.
And Chuck... you seem to have the right tutorial for just about everything! This one is great, and one I'll keep in mind in future.
