Graceful Movement

I got a chance to revisit some images I shot last year of my friend and dancer Laura. It was a beautiful location set against flowers and organic bushes with the signs of telephone lines in the background. She looks a lot like Alanis Morisette doesn't she?

Anyways, her birthday was recently and I am compiling some of my favorite images to give to her as a gift. Usually when I shoot, my favorite part is to go home immediately and look at my favorite images. I can usually batch in seconds picking the ones I know instantly. Usually the ones I know are "THE ONE" are instantaneous - I often know the moment I finish pressing the shutter button. After reviewing them a year later, I have had a change of perspective on certain images. Ones I hated originally are now considered a second time. These are a few that I've come to like as I re-look at them again.

She has such graceful movements. The true test was photographing her in perfect syncronicity with the movements of her hair, face, and dress.

I love the dead center composition and negative space. (This is one I had originally scraped).

We ended up moving to different locations and I discovered this beautiful brick wall which at sunset had a shadow of a tree. I told her to try to mimic the tree's shape and lines. It was a little arduous at first because some of her movements didn't line up with my vision. But here are the ones I love the most.

This crop and angle are pretty weak in my opinion but I think her body position is EXACTLY what I was looking for. I decided to go BW on this because her pose wasn't enough to hold in color with the tree's shadow. The background was really obsolete in this image.

I love photographing dancers. They are just so uninhibited in terms of body movement which is a true example of how our limits of the body are really extended when tested.