Photoshoot

It finally happened! I finally had the dance photoshoot I've been waiting for. The studio had an urban vibe to it - high ceilings, brick walls. A small sprung dance floor surrounded by lighting equipment was on the far side. The building was cooled by only a swamp cooler, so it was humid.

We began the shoot with me dancing until he saw something he wanted to focus on. He would choose a pose and then have me move through it. He would take a picture, examine it, and then have me adjust: turn my hips 15 degrees counterclockwise, bring my left shoulder toward him, look slightly down, break the wrist line, put my arms above my head, soften the fingers, jump, keep my feet together tight, and point the toes. He'd give me 5-6 instructions at a time and then build from there. Inevitably I'd forget something. He'd then remind me or I'd say, "Oh I forgot! Let me try again!" We would do the pose 7-8 times and he would take one shot for each take. Sometimes in the middle of a pose he would say, "Oh! You gave me an idea!" and we would try something different.

Every so often, I would look at each set of photos we took throughout the session. I was struck by the contrast between what I felt and images I portrayed on camera. I realized that taking photos is like any performance art: the emotion you convey to the audience is not something you actually feel. What you feel is purely physical - you're going through the list of tasks you need to accomplish: eyes closed, chin down, feet together, jump. I could immediately relate this to when I'm dancing in a showcase or performing theatre on stage: I rarely ever felt anything, I just followed my instructions/training. However, it became even clearer to me in this photo session that feeling emotion and showing emotion are two completely different things.

While Ed did some directing of our time, a lot of it was spent collaborating and some decisions were completely left up to me. He would take a series of photos and then have me look at them. I would look at the positioning of my head/shoulders/hands/feet/legs and then get back on the floor to angle them more, give more extension, or relax.

About three quarters through the session, my toes started hurting. I reached down to touch them and realized I was getting blisters, and the skin was coming off on one of them. I had done everything barefoot until that point, which I wasn't used to - usually I had suede under my feet. But I didn't want to stop the shoot. As long as I wasn't bleeding, I'd keep going. We did two more costume changes.

After nearly four hours, we called it a day. I was worn out, my feet were beat up, and I was sweating a ton from the humidity and heat. All in all, it was a good experience. Before I walked out of the studio, I was already thinking about how and when I would do it again and what I would change for next time :).

I included some of the photos from the shoot below (we took hundreds of shots). These are all raw images that have zero editing. I chose three from the entire batch Ed gave me and he will give them the final polish. Those proofs are not here and I'll show their final versions in a future post.