A shot I did a while back, not sure if I ever shared it here. We had some dead time during a costume portrait shoot, and so I asked the company's best dancer to come up with a cool pose while I worked some creative back lighting. It took us about six shots for us to get this right, and every time it was a painful fall off her pointe shoes. Loved the results tho.
Michael, totally get your vision there but I got almost exactly what I wanted out of this one. I wanted the light to kiss her right eye but not hit her cheek. That's what took us 6 or maybe even more takes to get. I was by myself, no assistant. What killed me is that I could get the light camera left down low enough, so I ended up laying it on the ground and that's why there's all that light on the floor to the left. Since I was shooting costume portraits, I didn't have any grids with me to control the light.
The rim light let's us "see" her and the light down below shows clearly the part of the pose that is amazing to non-ballet people. Having the main part of her torso dark helps show this. I like the light on her right eye too.
Cool shot, Ron. Reminds me of working with Jordan Matter when he came out from New York to SoCal. I suggested a photo of a male dancer in the footprints of Fred Astaire at the famous Chinese theatre in Hollywood. We got Kevin Williamson to do it, with a pose similar to this, although Jordan's final shot didn't include the whole body. But instead of six or so shots, Jordan took about 50 or more, and we got bounced outta there by security. Wasn't the last time for that on that two-day project, all over LA. Good times, though. ("Dancers Among Us", p.12) If you're interested in the story of that visit, here's a link to my blog entry form back in 2012: http://stevewyliephotography.com/blog/2012/10/jordan-matters-dancers-among-us-redux
Ages ago I worked with a ballet company on a special project and learned some of the physical realities of dancing. Dancers have a lot of foot stresses and fractures. Those soft shoes don't provide much support for en pointe dancing; yet they did it anyway. They're great athletes!
Steve, yeah Jordan Matter really works the dancers. I think you forgot (maybe not?), but you and I were talking a lot while Jordan was traveling the country doing these shoots. I wasn't able to help him when he came to Chicago, as I was out of town at the time but he and I exchanged a few emails. I definitely read your blog way back when, but I'll go read it again. Fun times!
GCasey, I never really thought of dancers as athletes until I started photographing them and began realizing how brutal dancing is to their bodies. It's amazing what they're able to do.
I think this image absolutely displays the degree to which our MINDS are our most important tool in photography.
Whether it was your idea or hers ... I know it surely wasn't the camera's.
This stratospherically elevates the concept of keeping someone on their toes to a mind numbing level ... epic.
And yeah, our creative minds are the most important tools in photography.