Abstract Images

For my Final Integrated Assessment I decided to go a bit alternative then my previous work. My previous work was about full portrait photography and the shape of the body, this time I wanted to keep with the theme of shape of the body but decided to get a little closer and make the dancers perform more flexible positions so they look abstract. 

Today I photographed two performers, Lucy who is a ballet dancer and Emily who performs freestyle. 

I chose to use a black background because I wanted to go a bit more dark with the images and because the leotards the dancers are wearing are black they blend in with the background making the dancers body stand out and gives a surreal effect to the image. 

Below are some chosen images from that days shoot

Lucy faced towards the back of the wall and lend back to stretch her back and because her arms are double jointed she able able to turn her arms so that her thumbs are on the inside of her feet. As she is wearing a black leotard with fabric you can hardly see the rest of her body apart from her arms, back, hands and the bottom of her ballet shoes making you double look and gives the image a surreal effect. 

The image below is of Lucy's legs from the side and instead of standing up tall on point she performed a different pose so that it did not look like a typical ballet position.  Again because of the black leotard and the black background blending in with each other you can just see the shape of her legs and because standing on your toes is not a normal position other than when ballet perform it makes the image look a little surreal.

The image below is of Emily stretching out her back, she is more flexible than Lucy so she is able to bend back more. Again I like the image because of the blacks blending in with each other so it looks abstract and surreal. I like the image below but compared to the one similar to this with Lucy I prefer Lucy's because you can see her face in this image and it is more of a portrait image. Whereas, I am trying to get more close ups so I am unsure about this image but will continue to capture alternative, close ups of dancers who are flexible.  

Below are contact sheets from the shoot with Lucy and Emily

Overall, I am happy with the shoot. The images on my camera looked like the exposure was correct but when uploading them onto my computer they looked a bit too dark so next time when shooting I will use my laptop and connect my camera so they will upload to Lightroom straight away and can look at the exposure.

The images above were captured in my home studio using naturally lighting and a tungsten to highlight the features on the body. Next time I will be shooting in the studio and will use a black background and tungsten lighting again to it keeps the image dark but highlights the key features on the dancers body. Overall I am happy with the view images I have but would like to work on getting closer to the subject and be more surreal. I would like to try flipping the image when editing making it more surreal and would like to push the dancers when position there body.

I prefer this then capturing dance portraits and as it keeps with the theme of shape of dancers and people think mainly dance is a pretty form of art but there is more to it than fluent, soft movement, it can be difficult and can have a dark side to it with the pressure they are under.