POSES, TIMING & TECHNIQUE
To help make sure you catch the perfect shot, here are a few photography tips! These tips can be really helpful for ballet, lyrical and calisthenics concerts and competitions, but also for portrait shoots, when reviewing your images and for choosing top pics. It will also be beneficial to understand what the dancer and their choreographer is looking for in a good technical photo, particularly if ballet technique isn’t your strength!
For the following examples, I’ve put a big green tick on the images that we are aiming for in each situation.
1. Photos taken from the back are good if the dancer is hitting a nice pose or movement like in the final 2 photos.
2. Often called passe, retire is actually the position in which a ballet dancer raises their thigh en l'air with the knee bent so that the pointed foot is placed either in front, behind or to the side of the supporting knee. Try to catch the image as the foot reaches the knee (the peak of the retire) as shown in the final 3 images.
3. Temps Leve is a small hop on one foot, with the other foot raised off the floor. The lifted foot can rest behind the other ankle or raise up straight behind in an arabesque position. Try to catch the image at the peak of the jump/hop with a stretched leg and pointed feet without cutting off hands or feet.
4. If the dancer holds a pose, especially beginning or end poses, take a few images. This will maximise the chance of you getting the perfect shot. Sometimes the dancer blinks or changes their facial expression just like in the images shown below. While they’re all nice photos, in these examples, if the photographer hadn’t taken the second image, they would not have been successful in capturing the desired moment!
5. Make sure you keep some buffer space around the dancer so that you don’t cut off their hands or toes in jumps. Look for the tell-tale signs they are about to leap or jump; prepping in the corner, a few running steps, a step-ball-change, a large plie or standing on top of a box or chair. Music can also be a great help, especially if you are familiar with the song. Listen for a big build up or accent to suggest a jump is coming.
6. Taking a second shot (or more) can also be really beneficial during a slow leg raise such as an arabesque or penché. When a dancer is doing or in a penché, they are usually bent forward over one leg with the other in arabesque well above 90 degrees. It’s not always possible to know the peak of the movement as it varies between each dancer due to the level of flexibility and balance. You may need to take a series of images to capture the peak. While the first images are good photos, the dancer may be disappointed as they know they went higher. If the leg keeps raising, keep taking photos!
7. Dancers often repeat movements on the right and then on the left (sometimes several times) it is a good idea to capture the movement or pose each time it happens. Sometimes your timing may improve, they may be better on one side, they may have blinked, or the angle is different. From the first set below, you can see that one side creates a dark shadow across the face, but the second image on the other side is perfect! It doesn’t take much more work to capture the movement on both sides, the worst that can happen is you end up with 2 good photos… As you can see from the second and third sets, both sides look great.
8. A Pas de Chat is a ballet leap from one foot to the other in which the feet are drawn up and the knees are bent so that the legs form a diamond. Here’s a video example: https://youtu.be/XAsMB3eRe6g There’s not a good time to take a photo during this movement, I’ve definitely tried! Sometimes it’s difficult to know when it’s coming as the prep step before it could go into a variety of jumps, but if they do repeat the Pas de Chat, there is no need to capture it. The photo will always look like awkward flying frogs…!
9. Sometimes the dancer, especially younger or a novice, may not have a high level of technical ability. They may only demonstrate basic poses, however, we still need to keep our shot rate up. As you can see from the set below, the dancer has stayed relatively still and moved their arms. The photographer still managed to produce 3 great images. This is quite common in ballet and it’s what we’re looking for.
10. During ballet, aim for images where the feet are in a tight fifth position and the knees are straight. Sometimes you have to wait until the movement is complete to catch the perfect shot.
11. For Ballet and Pointe, aim to take the shot when the dancer is right up on the ball of their foot or right over their pointe shoe. Here are a few great examples: