Dancer in the studio

Granddad · Mar 17, 2013

I shot a set last week with (yet another) dancer in my studio (dining room). I'd been a bit nervous about this shoot for several reasons: she'd diverted her return from Leeds to London specifically to have me take some portrait shots; she's a prize winning amateur photographer herself; and she's black (being black is an issue only in lighting terms - I've never shot a dark skinned person before).

I knew Roxane only from Facebook but she turned out to be one of the loveliest people we've met in a long time and my wife and I are very tempted to adopt her.

After some discussions we decided that I'd shoot her dancing rather than posed and aim to capture some of her grace and passion. I think it worked pretty well; she's pleased and so am I. C&C always welcome.

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e.rose · Mar 17, 2013

These are wonderful and I love them all. :sillysmi:

I think you did a great job of capturing her grace, movement, and energy!

tirediron · Mar 17, 2013

Very nice set!

runnah · Mar 22, 2013

tirediron said:
Very nice set!

The photos are good too!

DiskoJoe · Mar 22, 2013

These are really good. I can feel her energy coming through the set. I bet shes great live.

pixmedic · Mar 22, 2013

she got huge....tracts of land!

seriously tho.. I like the second one best. I think the darker background works well offsetting the bright and shiny costume.

Derrel · Mar 22, 2013

These all look pretty good, and the last one is really inviting and well-done! The lighting and backgrounds all look good. Costumes all look good, details appear to be in order. All the practice you've had over the past year looks to have truly payed off! The second frame (the dark backdrop shot) is very nice as well. Good set overall!

Photographiend · Mar 22, 2013

Wow, she is gorgeous. Great job.

I noticed you used white and black backgrounds. This is something I am playing with too ATM. Looks like you did a great job pulling off the solid white were you going for solid black in the second or was the gray intentional?

Ballistics · Mar 22, 2013

Nice set. What is the size of the backdrop?

frommrstomommy · Mar 22, 2013

these are really nice!

Granddad · Mar 23, 2013

Thanks, e.rose, tirediron, runnah, DiskoJoe, Pixmedic & frommrstomommy - compliments from people I respect are appreciated.

Derrel said:
These all look pretty good, and the last one is really inviting and well-done! The lighting and backgrounds all look good. Costumes all look good, details appear to be in order. All the practice you've had over the past year looks to have truly payed off! The second frame (the dark backdrop shot) is very nice as well. Good set overall!

It has indeed been a year since my first proper studio shoot - and 18 months since you swayed me towards spending my inheritance on the D700! Sometimes it doesn't seem that the advice I get is sinking in but I guess I'm making progress.

Photographiend said:
Wow, she is gorgeous. Great job.

I noticed you used white and black backgrounds. This is something I am playing with too ATM. Looks like you did a great job pulling off the solid white were you going for solid black in the second or was the gray intentional?

I normally burn my black backgrounds to solid black but this time I seem to have managed better (more even) lighting so I just gaussian blurred it and left it grey. I'm quite pleased with the result and will be working towards that in future more often.

Ballistics said:
Nice set. What is the size of the backdrop?

9 metres long x 3 metres wide. I have the 2 in cotton/muslin. I've thought long and hard about getting seamless paper but I take my studio to rented venues sometimes (will a 3 metre tube fit into a lift for transporting to the 5th floor?). Also I doubt if it will stand up well to dancers moving around in dance heels, especially if the venue floor is carpeted?

MK3Brent · Mar 23, 2013

Are you editing in 8 bit? #2 looks graduated in the dark areas.

I don't know if that's on my end, or if that's what the image looks like.

TMC · Mar 23, 2013

all nice shots and i like the tip about the black background and gaussian blur. definitely gonna give that a shot.

Fotofashion.no · Mar 23, 2013

When you have her posed like that, why not take the shot during the movement to get more motion in your pictures

Granddad · Mar 23, 2013

MK3Brent said:
Are you editing in 8 bit? #2 looks graduated in the dark areas.

I don't know if that's on my end, or if that's what the image looks like.

Yes, exported as TIFF from LR3 in Adobe 98 and 8bit. I was told once that 16 bit is pointless as our eyes can't see all those colours. However, I see the effect you're talking about now that you've pointed it out. I'll have to try re-exporting that one and experiment to see if it makes a difference I can see. Thanks for pointing that out!

Edited to add: Now I remember the main reason, I'm using PS Elements, PSE "only provides limited support for files with 16bit colour depth."

Fotofashion.no said:
When you have her posed like that, why not take the shot during the movement to get more motion in your pictures

I didn't pose her like that, I put the music on and told her to dance. She danced, I shot. I sometimes pose dancers but getting them dancing is more likely to capture something extra - even though it means more shots, more rejects and more work. There are others in the set where the motion is more apparent (swirling skirt etc) but the facial expression and body angle were less flattering to the subject.

TMC said:
all nice shots and i like the tip about the black background and gaussian blur. definitely gonna give that a shot.

Gaussian blur is very useful :thumbup:. Watch out for what I call "blur bleed" around the edges of your mask if you put the blur strength too high. Play around with the mask feathering and the blur strength till you find what works best.