2oth August 2016

Background

Katharine is Lauren's aunt and dance teacher. This shoot was designed to capture that aspect of their relationship.

It was photographed at St Mark's church in Leeds.

The shoot

1. Jazz hats. We found action shots did not work so well with tap so we went for more staged shots. The idea behind this shot was to create one continuous line with their arms.

We started with a bit of tap. In many of the shots I tried to frame the dancers in the window. This was not always easy as they did move about a lot - to be expected really.

2. After a couple of shots we came up with this. I love Lauren's face and the contrasting outfits. She certainly had fun shooting this.

3. A different idea reflecting the student teacher relationship.This was taken along side the hand rail and they used it like the ballet balance bars. The thought behind this shot was to focus on the student, but with the teacher looking on and supervising the exercise. I used the funky angle so both of their heads were in the shot and not overlaping. Lauren failed at not laughing and trying to look serious. An 85mm f/1.8 lens was used for this shot. Camera settings - f/2.2, ISO 200 and 1/125th of a second.

4. A head to waist shot of Lauren. A soft glow was added to this photograph.

5. A full body shot using the same render.

6. A very edgy render in contrast to the previous two photographs.

7. I asked Lauren to dip. One of the lights was placed to light up the tutu from behind and left. You can see the highlighted area around the small of her back.

Back to the teacher and student relationship. The next shot was something I came up with to further illustrate how a teacher can help a student learn the necessary skills. Must of what I do is improvised and I adapt to what is presented in front of me. I do have plan, but it is always flexible.

8. Katharine twirling Lauren around. I think Lauren was enjoying herself.

10. Helping a student out with her positioning.

Technical

For most of the shoot I used a full-frame camera with a 24-70mm f/2.8 lens throughout. The camera was hand held.

The camera was set to ISO 1600, f/4 and 1/400th of a second.

A large 150cm octobox was used as the key light with two long rectangular softboxes places on either side of the dancers. There were some alteration made depending on where they were standing and what I wanted to highlight. In shot 1two softboxes were used to even out the spread of light from the front.

11. The following photographs form a series of three. I wondered what would happen if there was friction in the relationship and Lauren threw a hissy fit. This shot cracks me up everytime. It was hard processing it without chuckling to myself. When I zoomed out.

12. The idea behind this shot came from an idea I had of encouraging dancers to leap higher. At first the teacher would dangle the carrot or in this case a bag or Haribo (other sweet brands are available) above the student's head.

13. Then make the student jump higher and higher for their prize. Nice work Lauren keeping your legs and feet together.

Post processing

Most of the post processing was done in Lightroom. A bit of cropping, straightening, lens correction adjusting exposure and saturation. A render was applied to the photograph and then tweaked as I saw fit.

Photoshop was then used to bring out detail in the stained glass window and outfits. In all cases sharpening too. A lot of dodging and burnings (lightening and darkening) took place too.

14. The two of them close together.

15. Katharine solo on point.

Many thanks to Sandy, Lauren's mum, for given me permission to publish these photographs as well as looking after everything. Lauren and Katharine for being amazing and Anne (Lauren's Nan, Katharine's mum and a former dancer herself) for the outfits and support.

Please leave a comment below and let me know what you thought of the photographs.