Evaluation

I rather enjoyed this unit as it allowed me to capture a subject which is meaningful to me. Photographing dance I had to work with two art forms; dance being about movement and expressing emotions and Photography about capturing those emotions in a still image.

Being a dancer myself I thought this would be quite easy as I have plenty of dancing friends who would happily model for me. Being a dancer also helped me create my images as I knew what sort of positions I wanted them to do (and made sure they were technically right) that would also work for the composition of the camera. This project was my first attempt at dance photography, but also of photographing moving objects!

For my first set of images, I was a bit short of time and I and fellow dancers were also busy with rehearsals and shows. So I decided to take a few images of my Pointe shoes and I took these on my bridge camera. They're alright, but not the best quality and although they're linked to dance, they're not actual dancing. So then I booked out a college camera (DSLR) and photographed my friend in her ballet lesson. However, I didn't like these images either because the background was too messy and distracting. These sets of images were experimental and helped me progress onto my studio shoot.

This was my first time photographing in a studio, so I didn't really know what to expect and how my images would turn out. The lights were always on in the shoot and in the same position and this allowed me to focus more on the dancers and what they were doing. I told them some positions I wanted and I also gave them the freedom to do whatever they wanted. During the shoot, I had to adjust my shutter speed, apperture and sometime ISO depending on the speed of the movement. This again was experimental and it took me a few attempts to get the setting right for certain images so that my images weren't blurred or over or under exposed. At the end of the shoot I was quite pleased with myself having captured some good images for my first time using professional photography equipment. Then I had to edit the images in Photoshop and this wasn't too hard and there wasn't much for me to do. Only simple things such as spot healing and clone stamping and adjusting the colour levels.

I needed another set of images and lookily for me, I had a dance show coming up. So again I booked out one one the college's 600D's so that I was able to adjust the settings. Because it was dark in the auditoium, but bright on stage, I used 'Tv' mode, shutter priority, so I only needed to adjust the shutter speed. This shoot was quite hard as the majority of the time it was quick dancing, so I needed a high shutter speed do that the images didn't blur, however I had to tackle with the bright and vibrant stage lights which were giving the images a washed out colour effect. This was my first time photographing dancers on stage and I did find it quite hard and some of the images hadn't come out like I'd hoped or like I'd seen in previous artists' work.

The main artist who influenced me is Gene Shiavone, whose images I had seen long before this project on his Facebook page. Seeing these images and how he was able to capture the beauty of dance is what encouraged me to choose it as my genre. Whilst researching, I also found the work of Paul Colwell, who mainly focuses on studio shoots. He liked the more contemporary and obsqure dance moves which showed freedom and with the help of his wife whose a dancer, he's able to get a range of great images. Although I liked the work of these artists, I wanted my images to be my own, so I just went into the shoots with my own ideas and gave it my best shot!

There were a lot of important factors to consider when I was taking my images, but I feel the most important was getting the shutter speed right. Most of the time a high shutter speed was needed so my images didn't blur and having really crisp and sharp images really helped to bring the beauty across. E.g the freedom of the hair and the flow of the dress - the high shutter speeds allowed me to capture this movement clearly. The composition of the image was also important when creating my own imagery. Where I placed the dancer within the frame helped to tell the story of where they had just been, or where they were traveling to - which helped portray the emotion within the dance.

Tips I would give new photographes wanted to capture dance would be to watch the dancers. If they're not a dancer themself it will really help just to sit and watch dancers to see what they do and how they do it. Once you've seen what they can do, you can then think about the composition of the image. Another tip is to know how the setting on your camera work, especially the shutter speed, so you kow how to clearly and sharply capture the quick movement.