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:

Ballet Dance Recital 2016 | Dance Photographer

Before 2016 ends, it's time for me to post photos from the 2016 Loudoun School of Ballet recitals. The ballet recital is beautiful, with dancers ranging from age 7 to 18. The later classes in particular are my favorites, as watching the graceful pointe dancers is so enjoyable.

First up: the non-graded ballet classes, ranging from young dancers to special groups (dancers who are also a part of the graded classes).
Beginning Ballet

Rising Stars Recital June 2016 | Dance Photographer

It's time to post my favorite photos from the 2016 Loudoun School of Ballet recitals! First up: the littlest dancers in the Rising Stars program.

Ballet I: Neverland

Loudoun School of Ballet Winter Showcase | Dance Photographer

In February, I photographed the Jazz & Co Winter Showcase, once again at Franklin Park Arts Center. After my first time photographing there, I was a bit more prepared for the smaller stage and different lighting techniques. I also didn't have the technical issues I encountered the first time, so overall was much happier with the photos. The girls did a fantastic job, repeating a few of the performances ("Mother", "Escapade", "Crystals"), but adding many more to the show than in the fall performance. This performance was extra special to me because my daughter performed in it, with the Showkids performing group.

This time I present the photographs in show order, instead of by performing group as I did last time. Solos will be in a post after this, as it was so difficult to choose a favorite shot.
First Company: All That Jazz

WCDE Workshop | Dance Photographer

I went the entire summer without posting anything here! I thought at first it was because I simply hadn't taken many photos that I want to showcase here, but it turns out that really isn't true. So, it's time to get through my backlog of dance photos and family portrait sessions from 2016!

First up, photos I shot at the WCDE Workshop in February 2016. My daughter participated in the workshops during the day, and then her, her friends, and all of us moms stayed around to watch the competition. The primary dance company from Loudoun School of Ballet was competing, and from my spot near the back of the room, I was able to take a few shots that the instructors and students really liked. The lighting was incredible, which helped to make these photos really pop.

Their first dance was "Seize the Day" from Newsies.

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.

January 2016 Rising Stars Dance Recital | Dance Photographer

At the end of January, I photographed the Loudoun School of Ballet Rising Stars Recital. As with other recitals, there are so many photos (although I had learned my lesson from the 2015 recitals and took far fewer photos than I had previously!). Therefore, for this post, I will once again post my favorite photo from each class.

These little ones are just so cute on the stage, and their enjoyment of dance really comes through!

For this recital, the theme was "Occupations", as you'll see in the class descriptions below.

Jazzy Hip Hop: Astronauts

Jazz & CO Fall Performance | Dance Photographer

I've blogged recently about the dance recitals I photographed last year. Because of that work, I was asked to photograph ALL of the Loudoun School of Ballet performances this year - so exciting! In addition to the recitals, this also includes a couple of smaller performances; the first of these for 2015-2016 was the Jazz & Co Fall Performance at the Franklin Park Arts Center. This was a very different type of performance than the recitals - all contemporary style, and only the Jazz & Co performance groups, so really the best of the best at the school.

This was a very different venue - I had previously only photographed the dancers on the larger high school auditorium stage. The Franklin Park Arts Center is a fantastic venue, but for photography it's a bit different. I was shooting from above, the stage is smaller, and the lights are not constant throughout the entire performance (they change depending upon the dance). So, a bit of a challenge for me! I did think ahead and bring two cameras with me, which turned out to be a good thing, when my main camera had some technical difficulties about half way through dress rehearsal. Because of that, some of the dances were not captured as I wanted, and some photos were nowhere near my usual quality. I'm taking this as a lesson learned, and I did much better at the next show (photos of that soon).

First up: the solos!
Arcadia

 Fever

 Cell Block Tango

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.

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

My dancers in black and white | Dance Photographer

Every fall, I have the chance to observe my kids in their dance classes. For this one week, I get to see what they do during class and watch them concentrate so well on what they are learning. This year, while editing the photos, some of them were just begging to be edited in black and white, so I'm posting them here all together. There's something about the starkness of the black and white, in this dance setting, that just seems perfect to me.

Solo Dance Portraits | Dance Photographer

When creating my previous post (and a couple of upcoming ones!), I kept coming across photos that are much more portraits - solo, duo, or a few dancers together. They're not quite representative of the class as a whole, which is why I didn't want to feature them in the posts I'm doing about each recital. Instead, I will share them here, with each photo getting to stand on its own.

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

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!

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!

A Frozen photo shoot | Child Photographer, Leesburg VA

One cold, dreary weekend in January I set up my new backdrop and let my daughter wear her new Elsa hat (with braid), along with her Elsa dress. The result: a Frozen-inspired photo shoot of my beautiful girl! Not on that, but it was an excuse to play with my two prime lenses (50mm f/1.4, and 85mm f/1.8). This photo in particular was my favorite.

Tulip Macro Shots

Sometimes I like to challenge myself to take a "good" photograph not using my DSLR. Yes, gear and lenses make a big difference, and I can do so much more with them...but it's also more to carry around, more editing to need to do (if I shoot in RAW), and, well, the lens on my iPhone 5S isn't half bad either. With the magnetic lenses that I received as a present a while ago, I can do even more.

For the Weekly Photo Project this week, the theme is "A Bug's Eye View". Today my husband very nicely purchased tulips for my daughter and I, so I thought: where would an insect me attracted to, but the flowers? So I added the macro lens to my iPhone camera, and with a small amount of editing afterwards, this is what I have!

Disney's Frozen on Ice

In October 2014 I took my family to see Disney's Frozen on Ice. I've previously taken them to see Disney's Celebration  and Disney's Princess Stories; of all three shows, I think we all agreed that this was our favorite. We had excellent seats, and with my 75-300mm telephoto lens, I was able to capture some beautiful moments!