Dancers

[LocalHero1953]

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A couple of weekends ago I spent four hours in one of the ancient colleges with dancers from a number of genres, creating publicity shots for their annual show next spring. Starting at 9am at 3 degC, I was frozen, but students are immune to such weather.
The first shot is of tap dancers - apologies for the lack of audio.
SL2-S + 24-90SL

 

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Edited November 22, 2023 by LocalHero1953

[LocalHero1953]

We moved indoors for the second part of the session, to get shots against a background that could be cut out for more graphic publicity.
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[david strachan]

Fabulous action n movement.

I'm sure the dancers will enjoy the images...love the eye contact and focus in image#2.

PS nice colours and processing too.

 

 

Edited November 23, 2023 by david strachan

[BruceRH]

The first image in the first post is really unique, nicely done!

[stuny]

A fabulous set.  I assume you've shot dance before, or at the very least had the help of dance artistic directors.

[LocalHero1953]

1 hour ago, stuny said:

A fabulous set.  I assume you've shot dance before, or at the very least had the help of dance artistic directors.

Thank you! I have done a limited amount (the totality is on my website), but I want to do more with both stills and video. I have enough technical awareness to avoid obvious errors, but I must learn more about dance itself to know what to look out for - limb, hand, finger and eye alignments are critical. The leaps were all shot with burst mode. The student genre leaders had a very clear idea of the poses they wanted to show (the umbrella group covers tap, street, jazz, contemporary and ballet). Unusually (for students) they worked with military discipline with regard to timing, being in the right place at the right time etc. They also had a good safety sense: leaps and en pointe poses have different risks on stone flags to a sprung dance floor.

I have been fortunate to develop a relationship with this group - there will be more to do next spring.

[fotografr]

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Great shots, every one of them. They definitely hired the right person. I know because I've tried this, but never as successfully.

[stuny]

6 hours ago, LocalHero1953 said:

Thank you! I have done a limited amount (the totality is on my website), but I want to do more with both stills and video. I have enough technical awareness to avoid obvious errors, but I must learn more about dance itself to know what to look out for - limb, hand, finger and eye alignments are critical. The leaps were all shot with burst mode. The student genre leaders had a very clear idea of the poses they wanted to show (the umbrella group covers tap, street, jazz, contemporary and ballet). Unusually (for students) they worked with military discipline with regard to timing, being in the right place at the right time etc. They also had a good safety sense: leaps and en pointe poses have different risks on stone flags to a sprung dance floor.

I have been fortunate to develop a relationship with this group - there will be more to do next spring.

When you start doing video, stay wide to see head to toe. 

[wpo]

Let me write it in german: Erstklassig!

[Red Dot Cameras]

Fantastic set of images, I am very jealous. I wish I had the opportunity to do a shoot like this.

[benqui]

Very well made! Really a wonderful set of the dancers!

[Boojay]

Fantastic series of images Paul, they must be delighted with them.

[LocalHero1953]

Thank you everybody for your kind comments! I get great pleasure from working with people like this, because they are perfectionists and are putting in so much effort to get it right. Many of my shots are the acceptable results from multiple takes, insisted on by themselves. They are fearlessly critical of each other, and accepting of criticism from their peers, because often it is only the observer who can see exactly which hand was at the wrong angle, or whose arms were not aligned.

I first shot this group for their annual show last February. My contact graduated last year and left, but I am pleased she passed my name on to her successor. I will cover the same show next year, and, I hope, some other events before then.

 

Edited December 1, 2023 by LocalHero1953