Fiona (with new photos added of the poster and ticket design)

[LaFoto]

This photo is against all the rules of people photography: all four of her limbs are cut off, she is posing - somehow - but definitely not for me and not in a photo-flattering manner, yet I like this photo a lot myself, despite all its compositional flaws, because of its expressiveness and the fact that this moment was so fleeting and so short, I did not have time to "compose" (limbs in the frame) at all.

Fiona is the dance instructor in whose dance classes I am working on a series of photos showing the progression from the rehearsal stage to their piece put on the stage on 28 June (and she said, right after I took this and said to her"Thank you so much for THIS pose!": "You can post this to your photoforum then, heehee, I don't mind.")

Do you think this photo as such excuses all the compsitional flaws it has?

 

[Alpha]

Why is it so soft? Do you have a high-res copy?

 

[Garbz]

Lol A photo like that excuses everything , Funniest thing I have seen all day.

 

[JimmyJaceyMom]

haha yeah I bet she was very happy that you took that photo! hee hee.

 

[LaFoto]

Well, Max, my problem in the little gym where they have their classes is light! While it is a room with windows on both sides which give me large, white patches whenever they get into the frame, and while I also get white reflections on the floor wherever those windows reflect, which all in all presents my camera with a (too) high dynamic range, all together there is too little light.

Therefore I tested it out and came to the conclusion: only ISO 1600 is what works. Mostly so because a) no one waits for me, they carry on their classes as if I were not there and b) I must photograph everything from the periphery of the room, I cannot walk up close to people, which means that I have to zoom in quite a bit. Zoom combined with movement (remember, it is a dance class) ... and that high ISO is the choice of the day.

And this photo was then put through NeatImage before I compressed the filtered version for web presentation. That may very well account for the softness, while the original has ... noise. :roll: So there. Such was the situation.

The assignment is for me to show the progression of their work, and to produce photos in which the dancers recognise themselves. So anything "artistic" in the way of emayd's much admired (by me) ballet photography is not required at this point in my work. I might consider trying out something like that at a later point in time when they start doing their last rehearsals on stage, with the stage lights. Who knows? It much depends on what the situation then will allow.

And JimmyJaceyMom: I still don't know why she did this and what it was for. While I know the music she uses for her choreography, many parts of the choreography were all new to me when I first arrived in her classes, so I had to sit there, watch, get a feel for what is important to be captured in photos, and be really really quick all the time. They never waited for me or repeated something FOR ME (when they made mistakes they would have to repeat something, but never for me). I guess her dancers were supposed to "imagine something very frightening" at this point, and to express their fright in facial expression and body language, and in order to remind them, she jumped up and onto that chair, looming over them with this expression? That is how this came about.

And I still like it - noisy or soft.

 

[cherrymoose]

Everyone who takes multiple shots a day should always try to get a fun shot like this. Wonderful job, under the circumstances!

 

[LaFoto]

Thanks, Emma.
This was one out of 200 that day .

And actually, come to think of it: I don't really think this one's soft.
I can count her eye-lashes in the original one...

 

[mec621]

not a great picture but a fun shot

 

[LaFoto]

I can't help the feeling, though, that as soon as I start selling all those rehearsal pics, this is going to be a best-seller .

 

[Puscas]

Fiona.....I was thinking Shrek!!





Yes, LaFoto it's the expression that makes up for all the rule-breaking here.






pascal

 

[LaFoto]

Hmm. I have never ever seen that film, so I didn't know what sort of associations my thread-title could provoke in some here .
Thanks for encouraging me to "break all the rules" here, Pascal .

There is one other photo of her hidden in the Photo Themes under On the Job, here - just in case you are interested.

 

[EBphotography]

Hmm I do sense a best-seller here when you put them all together. Or maybe it'll be Fiona buying them all so no one else can.

 

[The_Traveler]

this is fun but, imo, would profit from tighter crop.
try it at 5 h x 4 w with orange ball in top left.
the uni is overdark and would profit by using S/H tool.

 

[LaFoto]

Sure, a closer crop is yet another idea, but this has been cropped already, and I already added some to the tones of her clothes, I did not want to go any further. Might consider a closer crop, though, much depending on how much more time I have to get this batch ready to be sent away for the prints to be made.

 

[LaFoto]

OK, I went back to the first edition (original is RAW) and started to work on that one once more, and came up with a cropped (thanks, Lew), and converted version.

What do you say now?
Chopped off limbs no longer as bad?
Eyes even more expressive?
Conversion ok?

This has not been put through NeatImage, so the full noise of using 1600ISO is to be seen (read above posts for "the making of" this photo).

I tried to lighten up the black of her clothes and get greyish stripes ... so I refrained from going that far. At the highest possible ISO (for my camera) there is only so much pp-brightening a photo allows, and after that ... finito).

The more I think about it, the better I like the crop ... and might consider using this version for the print order, though the prints will be in colour for the general public. They are more used to colour photography.