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To get a better understand of dance photography I am going to look at the work of others see how they produce their images. I'm going to look at the types of images they produce, focusing on composition, subject and story.
Gene Schiavone - Ballet Photographer
Gene became interested in photography as a child when he experimented with his father's camera. He's had no formal training, but he read books and persisted to take photos of people. Later he attended photography workshops and studied the work of artists artists such as Henri Cartier-Bresson.
He first got into Ballet photography when he started attending his wife's American Ballet Theatre functions. He was very amazed by a dancer dancing on her toes (Pointe) and from his he attended more of their rehearsals and performances.
He was then given permission to photograph their performances and it provided him he the necessary time to develop the skill required to shoot fast movement mostly in lowlight conditions. After two years he was invited to photograph he main company, which led to other requests for similar work.
Here is one of his images of a ballet dancer.As you can see he has taken the image outside, rather then in the dance studio or onstage. This gives the image more of an interesting look because there are more things to look at. He's placed the pole in the left third and the dancer in the centre so we focus on her straight away.The overall image has a sense of elegance being in black and white as they are simple colours and make us focus on what is happening in the image. There is also a leading line if the wall leading us to the dancer where we then focus on her extended leg. Overall I think this is a good image as it allows us to see a different side of ballet as she is sat down outside, still looking elegant however, instead practicing her routines in the studio.
In this image, we don't see the dancers' faces and i think this is because he want's us to focus on the position of the dancers who look like they've just finished practicing a a dance routine. He's also used depth of field to make the image softer to the eye by having the focus in the centre and the foreground and background slightly out of focus. Compared to the other image, this one works very well in colour as it allows us to see the bright colours of the dancers' leotards and tutus, making the image stand out.The dancers are also stood in a line, therefore leading us to the girl in the background so looks slightly timid holding her hands together close to her chest.
Paul Colwell - Dance Photographer
Paul likes working with dancers because he tends to find they chase perfection as obsessively as he does. He also like's a challenge as he says it's really hard to shoot dance.He finds photographing dance as a process of combining two art forms. Where dance is all about movement, photography is fundamentally stillness.
When working with a dancer, he likes to watch them warm up and practice routines. This gives him the chance to asses the best way to capture particular moves.
He also has the help from his wife Marion who is a classically trained ballet dancer, so she is very experienced and knows everything about ballet. She will place the dancers in interesting positions, both good for ballet, but also for the composition of the picture.
Compared to Shiavone, Colwell takes is images of dancers in the photography studio so he can use lights and have a blank background. In this image we can see the dancer doing a 'ponche'(one leg led above the head) on a chair and this gives the image an interesting look as it shows how props can be used in dance. Colwell would have used a high shutter speed to be enable to capture he flick of he dancers' hair - this effect shows how swiftly the dancer moves.This image is also effective as it shows the strength of a dancer to be able to raise her leg above her head, so she's effectively doing the splits in the air.
In this image we see the dancer jumping in the air gracefully and holding an elegant position.This image is effective as it shows us how dance expresses emotions and also the strength needed to be a dancer as she would have had to use a lot of energy/effort to jump that high and hold he position. Again, Colwell would have had to use a high shutter speed to capture this beautiful moment as it will have all happened so fast.
Lois Greenfield - PhotographerLois photographs many different styles (such as music and theatre, body scapes and advertising) but mainly focuses and bases them on dance.
"I've spent the last 25 years of my photographic career investigating movement and its expressive potential. My inspiration has always been photography’s ability to stop time and reveal what the naked eye cannot see. My interest in photography is not to capture an image I see or even have in my mind, but to explore the potential of moments I can only begin to imagine."
"In my photographs, time is stopped, a split second becomes an eternity, and an ephemeral moment is solid as sculpture. The seemingly impossible configurations of dancers in the air are all taken as single image, in-camera photographs."
Lois prefers to work outside the constraints of the choreography collaborating with dancers on improvised, non-repeatable, often high-risk moments.
Like Colwell, Lois takes her images in the photography studio, mainly using plain backgrounds and hi-key lighting to capture all the action. The majority of her images are capturing the split-seconds creations, such as the positions held in the air. This allows us to study carefully in detail, what we see in a split second in real life. In the image below we can see two dancers in mid action, we see the man doing a 'Pas de chat' and the woman doing a back bend on pointe, this image really captures some sheer beauty. Lois would have used a high shutter speed to be able to capture the quick movement without the final image blurring. This image is effective as it shows us how well two people work together to create a beautiful scene and expressing their emotions.
In this image we can see how the dancer has incorporated a cloth, to really enhance the freedom they have/feel when dancing, particularly when holding positions in the air. Again a high shutter speed would have been used to capture the fast motion. The dancer is also looking at the camera, so this makes the image effective as it allows us to look into his eyes and see his emotion.
This image i took whilst Tilly was going through a dance exercise, so a needed quite a high shutter speed, around 1/150 to capture the movements. Again this image isn't effect because of the background and Tilly isn't in Ballet tights and leotard.
