Ballet Photography
I've always been drawn to documentary photography,
and while I've expanded my repertoire substantially
over the past year to include studio work,
portraiture and the like, it remains a big part of
how I see and feel my world.
The backstory..
We promised our daughter she could begin dancing at 4
years of age - and on her birthday my wife quickly
found this quirky little studio (Ballet Bellevue) nearby that
had the right focus on performances and had a
great artistic director with a wonderful pedigree. We really wanted to avoid
the cheerleader-esque "dance competition" studios
and we were quickly at home in the melee of real
dance. She blossomed and grew there and we were
happy.
In late 2006 my wife prodded me to do some work for
them. I proposed a project that would document life
at the studio over the year and it was quickly
accepted. It became and exciting and challenging
project - learning to shoot fast moving dancers in
less than stellar lighting conditions.
When Ballet Bellevue had a falling out with Viktoria,
their artistic director, we decided to follow her to
a new studio she opened nearby - Emerald Ballet Theatre. I
continued to shoot for Ballet Bellevue through the
rest of the 2007 season, but I felt more welcome
at EBT and Viktoria really understood what
photography can bring to the equation. She is very
open to using photography showcasing her fledgling
business and I've done all their advertising and
promotional work over the past year. We also
helped put the studio together with several
friends - the focus was to be a beautiful,
organized studio with a simple, beautiful
atmosphere. To augment this, I began hanging
regular groupings of work and I do sittings with
individual dancers periodically.
Today...
One of the things I've learned is that I increasingly
look forward to the big productions - when dancers
are in costume and are working hard at their
variations on stage. EBT really focuses on
performances as a learning experience - and Chloe has
really grown because of this. As a new studio, we are
still a bit conservative on the number of
productions, but our repertoire will expand as we
grow.
We recently finished up our first year and the
end-of-year performance. I am very pleased with some
of the images I've captured from this past season and
am in the process of putting together a book almost
300 pictures from EBT's first year.
Look for it here soon.
I'm off in a few hours to ride my road bike up a
volcano...