Like Music Written on the Paper

During the photo shoot with the dancers I wanted to try some movement shots, which turned out not to be as easy as it looks. The timing had to be right, focus had to be predetermined and I had to make sure all the light in the studio were kept to a bare minimum. We have a lot of white walls in the studio so I wanted to paint the walls black, but was advised against that by Tina Williams (studio mate and fellow photographer) because it would have been much too difficult to keep the tone consistent. So I hung two large black curtains instead. Which was much easier and less messy. Here are a few images I took of Jenelle jumping. I kept the same theme as before (see my last post) - having them do unnatural, or un-dancer like, jumps. We had a lot of fun, but I think they got a little tired after the 10th jump.

These set of images are the reason I wanted to photograph the dancers (see below).
I wanted to show their movement but not have them frozen in time. The idea came from a recent photo shoot of art work. One of the pieces had colored lights behind them, giving off a glow. I asked the artist to hold up one of the lights and move from side to side. This was the perfect way to show the flowing movements of the dancers. So I hooked them up with lights and asked them to perform their favorite jumps, turns, twists or anything they wanted.
The first is a dancer jumping without a strobe, just showing the movement. She was doing the Baryshnikov jump. The second is her doing the same jump but with the strobe. The grace in which the light moves through the air reminds me of looking at music on the paper without hearing the sound. This is what the jump really looks like - the subtle hand movement, the position of the legs - all in perfect symmetry.