Most people know at this stage that I don’t do a lot of Studio work and there’s no permanent photography studio here.
I have the space and the equipment to put it together when I need it and sometimes it’s what a particular photo asssignment needs.
In my minds eye I had dance pics in an informal studio setting, I can’t find the reference (Leibovitz?) but the isolation of the backdrop focuses attention to the dancers but leaving the stands (and the lights even in some cases) in shot doesn’t constrain them to the environment I’ve created for them.
It’s almost like they’re so full of energy that they’ll burst out.
It’s also probably a bit of me pushing back against the falseness of the studio background. Leaving the stands in is like saying ‘lets not pretend that this isn’t something articfial’.
I love working with Dancers – they’re so aware of themselves and their form. And these are just kids – my kids too!!!
It’s in the nature of what I do that many assignments come at short notice. Yesterday lunchtime I was asked to photography my daughters for a promotional image for the dance company they work so hard for. My pleasure. But what to do?
What do we have to work with: it’s sunny, we are blessed with a large garden but it’s a bit cluttered (trampolines, sheds, swings, nets etc), we also have access to our neighbour’s garden which is a lot greener (but quite narrow). Thankfully it’s half-day at Secondary school and the girls are in fine form and have matching dresses.
So we’ll work out the garden thing but the sun is the first challenge. Nice and bright but we need to make sure we deal with the contrast between the direct sun and the shadows. There’s no real shade at this time of the year so we need to plan to shoot in full sun. Personally I generally shoot into the sun or at a slight angle so that my subject is in reasonably even shadow and we might get a bright rim light.
Fine but now there’s a stop (or more) between my subject and the background. You have two options: expose for the shadow and blow the background by overexposing it; or get some additional light into the subject using a reflector or an artificial light source. I want my background so it’s going to be the second option. I’m a big fan of the reflector but I don’t have one big enough to light a full length shot and no time to find something to improvise. On site I’d normally use on-camera flash to fill in here but I have a little more time and enough kit at home to try something else: off camera flash to one side. This gives me the option to get more dramatic lighting (since it’s a dance pose).
When we get to the bottom of the garden there’s actually some lovely dappled shade at the bottom of the garden from the bare trees. Two bonuses here: the back-lighting is now way more interesting and textured; it’s also somewhat diffused so there’s slightly less contrast between the sun and the shade. Result.
As it happens my first few test shots show that the camera’s exposure is pretty much bang on so we work away.
Some lovely stuff in there and hopefully we’ll be seeing them around Cork very soon ahead of the show in May.
Daughter Number One has been on at me since Christmas for some nice shots of her dancing to balance out the swimming pics on her wall. So as well as the duets for Tina we do a few of her on her own. I’m sure Other Daughter will want some now too when she sees these…
