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

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

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