Contemporary Recital 2016 - Part 2 | Dance Photography

In my previous post, I highlighted my favorite photos of all of the jazz performances from the 2016 Contemporary Recital. Now I get to focus on the other classes from this recital, which includes lyrical, musical theater, performance groups, and lots of tap classes!

Beginning lyrical:

Contemporary Recital 2016 - Jazz | Dance Photographer

Because there are so many dances in the Contemporary Recital (almost 30!), I've split this recital into two posts. This first one will include all of the Jazz dance classes, both graded level and otherwise. That's still 13 classes! So, starting with Jazz I, here are my favorite shots from each class.

Jazz I:

Jazz II:

Winter Showcase: Solos | Dance Photographer

In the 2016 Loudoun School of Ballet's Jazz Company Winter Showcase, there were three solo performances by members of the company. I wanted to capture the beauty of these soloists!

Dancer #1: Miss MK

Miss Natalie - dance shoot | Dance Photographer

Back in February, I was hired for a second dance portrait shoot. We had to reschedule a couple of times due to weather, and even had to move the shoot from outdoors (which we were hoping to be able to do), to indoors. Luckily, I thought of just the right place to do this kind of shoot...and the location did not let us down! I absolutely love the mix of glass, marble, steel, and light to shoot this beautiful young dancer.

Miss Lauren - dance portraits | Dance Photographer

A couple of months ago I was commissioned to take some dance portraits of one of the Interns at the LSoB. Miss Lauren, as our kids call her, has helped out in classes for both of my kids, and is such a beautiful and talented young lady. I was very excited when she reached out to me to take some posed dance portraits for auditions she had coming up. Lauren and her mother came to my home to pose in my studio, and we ran through the poses she needed. This first one couldn't be use for her audition photos, but I really liked it, enough to show it here!

Trying some Lifestyle Photography

On some of the photography groups I'm in, I'll see people posting their examples of "Lifestyle photography". For those who don't know, this is basically capturing moments as they happen, in your house or whatever you're doing - not explicitly posing, but more trying for candids, etc. It's not a style of photography that I do a lot, but last month I wanted to give it a try. My kids were each enjoying a nice warm bath (separately!) mid-day, and so I gave them some toys to play with, grabbed my camera, and captured what I could. I think it was a good experiment; I can definitely use some improvement, but I love some of the moments that I captured of my kids, and that's what it's really all about.

Here are a few of my favorites of each of them. Love these two.

Lincoln Park Zoo | Animal Photographer

In November 2015, I took a trip through the midwest for work, finishing in Chicago. I had the chance to spend a couple of hours walking around the Lincoln Park Zoo, which I had heard wonderful things about. While it wasn't the top zoo I have ever been to, it was definitely a good one! I think part of it was the weather - it was such a beautiful cold, clear day.

Contemporary Dance Recital 2015 | Dance Photographer

While this was the first recital I photographed during recital week in June 2015, it ended up being the last one that I posted here! I love photographing the beautiful ballerinas, and the adorable little ones, but for pure dance enjoyment, the Contemporary recital is definitely my favorite. I love the styles - modern, jazz, lyrical, tap - and the fact that the girls get to have a bit more freedom of expression and movement than you typically see with ballet. With that said, let's get to my favorite photo from each class!

Jazz I

Yes, they are Minions! With my little dancer second from the left, in the front.

Rising Stars Dance Recital 2015 | Dance Photographer

The second of three dance recitals last June was certainly the most adorable: the Rising Stars! These are all the kids ages 7 and under at the Loudoun School of Ballet. The have two recitals per year, winter and spring. I previously photographed the winter recital (in fact, that was how all of this dance photography started!), and was very excited to photograph them again. After photographing the older dancers, I realized how much easier the little ones are - they don't move around nearly as much, and there are far fewer dancers per class!

There were a total of 15 classes plus 2 Intern dances for the theme of "Cinderella". As I did in my previous post of the Ballet recital, I'll post my favorite photo from each class here.

Rising Stars Interns: Ballet opener

I love the way that these blue skirts twirl!

Rising Stars Interns: Closer

Ballet Dance Recital 2015 | Dance Photographer

As all of you who follow me on Facebook know, I spent much of my time in June and July finishing the action/stage photos from the Loudoun School of Ballet's spring dance recitals. This was a huge undertaking - I ended the dress rehearsals with over 4,000 photos, spread over about 50 different classes. It took me the better part of a week to just organize everything! And at that point it was edit, edit, edit. I could not have been happier with the results, and am so thankful to the parents who chose to purchase from me.

I of course cannot post all of my favorite photos here - there are just way too many! So I thought in order to provide everyone with a sampling of the style of stage dance photography I do, I'd post my favorite shot from each class. Even narrowing it down this far is a little bit difficult, but I think I've managed to highlight the best ones. I also took posed "class photos" at the end of each dance, but the action shots are so much more interesting, I think!

The school has graded levels of ballet classes - in this recital were levels II - X. I have a soft spot for Ballet II since it was my daughter's class!
Ballet II

Halloween Costume Photo Shoot | Child Photographer

Kids love dressing up in their Halloween costumes, and it's so hard to get good photos of them during the excitement of Halloween night. So, what's a photographer to do? How about get the kids dressed up before Halloween and do a couple of photo shoots? Both were done just after my daughter's dance class (as her hair was already done!) - we just changed into costumes and headed outside!

This first set were taken just outside of our house, near the pond. My son was VERY excited to wear his full Darth Vader costume (and use the light saber as prop!), and my daughter was happy to model her newly purchased dance costume.

Welcome to the world, Baby L!

About a month after our sunset maternity shoot, baby L entered the world! I photographed him around one week old, and he was a fantastic little subject...who did not want to miss a thing during his shoot. Look at those bright eyes!

The G family | Maternity Photographer

I was so excited for this maternity shoot, since the dad-to-be is a coworker of mine! He and his wife are lovely, and a lot of fun! They brought a few ideas and props to the shoot, and I had some ideas of my own - together, it made for a very fun sunset maternity session.

Little Miss E turns 1 | Child and Family Photographer

After photographing this beautiful little one as a newborn, at 6 months, and 9 months, it was finally time for her 1 year photo shoot!

The Extended K Family | Northern Virginia Family Photographer

During the first weekend in May, I was scheduled to shoot my largest family session ever: 10 adults and 3 kids, spanning 3 generations! This shoot was so much fun. I had gotten to know one of the couples here through my daughter's dance class, and was so happy when they asked for me to do this special family photo shoot. When you have 5 siblings plus spouses, children, and grandparents, it makes for a boisterous, fun group! We all met up at their house at Lake Anna in Virginia, and took photos around the property. It was a stunning location, and the family was a ton of fun!

Little Miss E: 9 month portraits

It's very important that I get this little cutie's 9 month photos up here, as I just shot her 1 year photos last weekend! I've previously shot Miss E for her newborn photos, as well as at 6 months (we skipped 3 months because that's a very difficult age to get good photos of a baby). At the very beginning of May we scheduled (a bit after 9 months, to be true, but sometimes that's how schedules work), and I was very excited to have this shoot be a bit different than the previous two. First, we shot outside (the other two were indoor portraits), and second we shot at a brand new location that I had never used before, hidden away in Leesburg! I absolutely love this location, and can't wait to do another photo session here.

Welcome to the world, Baby R! | Newborn Photographer

I'm so happy when I have a friend who has a baby, and even happier when I get asked to take some photos of the new baby and parents. Again I was able to visit one of my very good friends in the hospital when she gave birth in May, and she and I were fortunate to get a couple of hours in the hospital room just the two of us (and the new baby of course!). We don't get that often, so it was a really nice time, capped off with some photos of the little one and her mom. I've never really taken photos in the light that we had (a single light from above and behind the hospital bed), and it was definitely a bit of a challenge, but I loved capturing mom and baby in the first day of baby's life.

Rising Stars Interns | Dance Photographer

In January, I had the opportunity to photograph a large number of dancers at my children's dance school. Through a series of unforeseen circumstances, the photographer who had been hired to do the action photography on stage ended up leaving during the dress rehearsal, so I was asked to step in at the last minute. I wasn't fully prepared, but did have my favorite lenses on me, and so I think I was able to capture the dancers as requested! I don't really want to post the photos I took of the little ones here, so instead I will focus on the high school age Interns, who dance with the little kids on stage. In addition to helping out the young ones, they also do their own opening and closing number. These girls are beautiful dancers and very sweet with the little kids, so I was glad to have the opportunity to get to capture them dancing!

Miss A: Senior Portraits | Portrait Photographer

Last fall I did a senior portrait shoot of a colleague's daughter. She's absolutely lovely; a beautiful girl both inside and out! I had already posted her "sneak peek" album on Facebook, and so I wasn't in a huge hurry to get these photos up here on the blog...but since just this past week I attended her graduation party, and on Wednesday she officially graduated from high school, I thought I would finally put up a few of my favorites. Best of luck to this lovely lady as she heads off to Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in the fall!

Little Miss E: 6 month portraits

As I am about to take 9 month photos of this little beauty tomorrow, let me get her 6 month photos up here! I gave these to mom and dad well over a month ago, but have not had time to get them up here. No time like the present.

Miss E is seriously a cutie. I've previously shot her newborn photos, which were a mix of lifestyle (in her nursery) and posed photos. I don't often shoot lifestyle, but it was a lot of fun to do, and she was such a good baby throughout!

For her 6 month, we did posed shots in my studio area. Once again, she was so good throughout. I didn't get a lot of smiles, but she was very attentive and alert, and had no problem with any outfit her mom put her into. If only every baby was like this!