Giving students, teachers, and parents an edge in dance education
Scott W. Lewis doesn’t shoot professionally and has no background in dance, but has captured many magic moments with a camera. First, he photographed his daughters for keepsakes, later turning it into a hobby that’s put his work on the cover of Dance Studio Life and right here on Dance Advantage.
Ashley Deranhas, a senior dance major at Western Michigan University, finds solace from the rush of every day life in photography. Stumbling into dance photography almost by accident, she quickly realized her love for shape and natural sense of timing translated incredibly well into images. Two of her photographs are featured for this month’s Sunday Snapshot.
Blossoming dancer and dance photographer, Kristen Newsom, shares a picturesque photo – an arabesque on the New England coast – and her dual passions for dance and photography, as she looks forward to another summer at Burklyn Ballet and a new semester at Sam Houston State University.
Kimene Slattery-Ching is a Queensland based award winning dance photographer offering on site, on location, or in studio dance portfolios for dancers. She is a former dancer and maintains a keen interest in rehabilitative – expressive dance movement, Kimene has also turned to her camera to combine her two loves – dance and photography. This photo dramatically depicts a ballet dancer in blue and white chiffon, arching her back against the billowing fabric.
How sports photographer, Michael Seaman, fell in love with capturing ballet. Featured photo: Dress rehearsal of Boston Ballet’s Romeo and Juliet. Larissa Ponomarenko and Nelson Madrigal, Feb 2008.
Paolo Santos came to photography by way of film making. He got his first digital SLR camera strictly to create time lapse sequences for his work in 2005. When the camera was not taking time lapse, he was snapping images here and there and finally, one day decided to get serious with it. This image was taken outdoors in Utah and it features his wife, Caroline Sicard.
His interest in capturing dance was borne out of an ongoing personal project to explore the theme of movement in his photography. “Since we naturally move around in our clothes,” Paul explains, “I am interested to capture an aspect of movement in my work, mainly from a fashion point of view. The natural extension of that was to incorporate dance
Since 2006 Patrick has been photographing weddings throughout Germany, events in and around the Munich area as well as environmental portraits for families, children, actors and more recently dancers.
Though it may seem a million miles away from what he had been doing, Matt says he arrived at dance photography because he likes to challenge himself and wanted to combine the power and speed of rugby or motorsport with the technical and lighting skills he had developed while working in the studio. It was then that he stumbled upon Jim Markland’s dance photography workshop being held nearby.
“Dance and the arts are not anything new to me, but dance photography has definitely widened my horizons especially in the area of traditional/ethnic dance. I live in such a wonderfully cultural diverse region so am fortunate enough to be able to attend many events and festivals throughout the year.”
![[Photo] Three girls in black tutus strolling the sidewalk in Albuquerque, NM](http://danceadvantage.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/tutu-walking-588x391.jpg "tutu-walking")
Dubbing these “Random Acts of Dance,” Randy describes the journey through Albuquerque’s city streets. “We started our Sunday morning at a Starbucks Coffee located at the Albuquerque Uptown mall to plan our day. We then took the photo shoot to a local park, and then ended up on Central Ave. (old Route 66) where the girls changed into jeans, and colorful pointe shoes to finish up the day.”
![[Photo] Dancer Austin Meiteen in Dance Institute's Mr. Curiosity, photo by Rene Michaels](http://danceadvantage.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/MrCuriosity-Austin-266x400.jpg "MrCuriosity-Austin")
“From my perspective as a dance photographer, it’s about capturing the passion in the moments during a routine that translates the music visually to the audience through dance. A picture is worth a thousand words.” Of the young man in the photo above, Rene adds, “Austin does a great job of transferring his passion visually in this shot.”
