Dance with fabric

A sample from my shoot with the amazing professional dancer Megan

Painting the Scene with Light

It feels just like in my studio – creating something out of nothing (setting the mood of a scene with light) - on a slightly larger scale or course…
Usually, when shooting on a performance stage, you have no influence on the lighting or choreography. In this case however, I was able to design, install and program all of the lighting. 8 x Martin Mac700 and 8 x Martin Mac 575, some conventional light and a group of amazing young dancers...

Sounds like hours of fun to me...
What a few weeks we've had, in preparation to my wife's dance academy's annual concert. From initial stage design, photography, music editing and mastering, program and poster artwork design, to onstage lighting design and programming. I don't think I've ever been more tired before, yet I'm still smiling. It's the good kind of tired, when you know you achieved something extraordinary.

As always, I tried to push myself, and to not just design a scene to be well lit, but to create emotional moments on stage. And since I'm not a set designer but only a photographer, I do so entirely with light.

It’s this time of the year (again)…

For the last seven years, I spent a good part of my November on helping my lovely wife and her Dance Academy in preparation of her school's end-of-year concert. This year is no exception. So far we photographed over 120 students individually and in groups, for the concert program and photo book, featuring over 200 elaborately hand made costumes. We are now in the last moments of finishing the concert program, a large 20 page booklet, which will go to print next week. Next on the list are the lighting plans, the final mix of all the performance playbacks, and the creation of 1.5 hours of video projections, which will be used during the stage performance.

If you don't hear much from me over the next couple of weeks, there is a high chance that I might be hiding in row 24 in the theatre, catching up on some sleep, in the recording studio finalising the mastering, or at the printer, making sure the booklets turn out just the way we created them...

Ballet Weekend…

It's always a great pleasure to spend time in a ballet studio, and to create images with young and upcoming ballerinas.

I'll be producing a wide range of images today, from cute 4 years olds who just want to jump around, up to the promising stars of tomorrow, who do things that would break my back, while making it look ridiculously easy and graceful ...