I spent my Sunday working with my buddy Kathy Porupski doing some dance photography for one of her friends, Ricky Jaime. Ricky is a dance teacher over at Center Stage Dance in the Tampa, Florida area, and just a phenomenal artist.
We started with working with Ricky through a few poses to get him used to the flashes on the set . Not that he needed any coaching here. Once he got onto the set, he just started flying! Pose after pose, Ricky made leaping through the air just seem effortless. There’s just something about watching a dancer leap through the air that just leaves you speechless.
While making some changes to the set, I decided to see what a dark background would look like. We set two lights – one facing him and one behind him. The front light was set with a Westcott 12×50 strip light with a grid on it – on a Elinchrom 600. The back light was another RX600 with a pan and grid on it. The key with these lights is to get them exactly in the position of where the dancer is going to end up. When working with grids, the light is focused to a very specific area. Not only does he need to jump, but he needs to jump right into the area where the light is focused. This will just outline him, and not spill over into any areas, leaving you a great low-key image with some great form.
A big thank you to Ricky and Kathy for coming out and playing today. Something tells me this kid is going to go places!