I have been photographing dance and ballet for over 20 years, and have had a number of one person exhibits of my fine art black & white ballet photographs. I like the composition and design I find in ballet photography, particularly in the creative use of light and shadow. I also find the athletic ability of the dancers to be amazing.

Some of my most interesting photographs have resulted from working with The Washington Ballet, beginning in 1983. This was during the period that Choo San Goh was the Artistic Director. His choreography style was new and dynamic and exciting. It was also very photogenic, and I liked the photogenic quality of using unitards on the dancers. You will see some examples of this in the photographs that follow. I start this section with a group of photographs taken of the Washington Ballet during that time.

Many of the photographs below were taken during dress rehersals of the Washington Ballet, so opportunities for extensive experimentation were not readily available. They were taken with a combination of tungsten stage lighting and carbon arc spotlights. In the early years a fast B&W film was used, usually pushed to ISO 1600 speed. At that film speed I could usually shoot at about 1/250 second at f2.8 (if all lights were fully on). The lenses that I found to be most useful for these shoots were an Nikon 85mm f1.4 lens, a Nikon 105mm f1.8 lens, and the excellent Nikon 80-200mm f2.8 zoom lens. The additional visibility available when using the f1.4 lens helped considerably in focusing on a moving subject in the relatively dim light. Since it was a dress rehersal and not a performance, often I was able to use my feet as a zoom lens, by running up and down the aisle while shooting. I have found that, for me, the use of an autofocus camera during this action shooting was often not able to capture just the right instant, due to the lack of autofocus speed. Newer cameras have been getting better in this regard, however. My most recent ballet photographs were taken digitally, with a professional digital camera body and those same Nikon lenses.

Included in my photographs of the Washington Ballet are several that are in the permanent collection of the Valparaiso University Museum of Art. Valparaiso University is one of my alma maters, and in 1994 I had an retrospective exhibit of my ballet photography at the University (50 prints, generally approximately 11"x14" matted and framed to 16"x20"). That exhibit resulted in the selection of four of my photographs for their extensive collection of contemporary photography.

Photographs of THE WASHINGTON BALLET

A number of my ballet photographs are below. These were all taken at dress rehearsals of The Washington Ballet or the Young Dancers of the Washington Ballet, during the period of 1981 through 2002. For a more extensive view of my ballet photography, please visit my separate ballet web site at http://www.ballet-photography.com.

Company in "Serenade" by George Balanchine (The Washington Ballet)

John Goding and Hilary Canary in "Variation Serieuses" by Choo San Goh (The Washington Ballet)

Julie Miles in "A Handel Celebration" by Vincente Nebrada (The Washington Ballet)

Company in "Variations Serieuses" by Choo San Goh (The Washington Ballet)

Malcolm Grant and Amanda McKerrow in "Variations Serieuses" by Choo San Goh (The Washington Ballet)

Simon Dow in "Sylvia" by Luk de Layress (The Washington Ballet)

Just a few of the individual dancers I photographed for the Washington Ballet for the 2000-2001 season.

This photograph is of the entire group of Washington Ballet dancers, again for the 2000-2001 season. Note that Amamda McKerrow is in the middle of the first row. She was a Guest Soloist with the Washington Ballet that year. When I first started photographing the Washington Ballet in the early 1980s she was an upcoming star, who later went on to be a Principle Dancer at the Americal Ballet Theater in New York.

Finally, below is one of my favorite ballet photographs, taken of a member of the Young Dancers of the Washington Ballet, a pre-professional dance group of advanced students from the Washington School of Ballet. The photograph is of Stephanie Walz, taken in the Lisner Auditorium at a dress rehearsal for their 1990 performance.

Stephanie Walz in "Swan Lake", by Marius Petipa / The Young Dancers of the Washington Ballet (Note: Stephanie was later a principle dancer with the American Ballet Theater in New York)


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Unfortunately, the ballet company dancers are usually under contract and thus restricted, so it is difficult to obtain a model release for private studio sessions. As a result the work in my studio is mostly with photogenic ballet students from the Washington School of the Ballet or from some local dance schools. Occasionally I have the opportunity to photograph a visiting dancer as well. Some of this studio work follows below.

One photograph in particular I call "Dancing Feet", and is shown above. This photograph was taken at a local dance school, with several of their students who had asked me to take some dance photographs of them for their school yearbook. One of the photographs I took was of the feet of one of these teenage dancers, which had a look I really liked. I then printed it using a special "chemical etch" procedure that gives the photograph a look like a charcoal etching. It has been my most popular ballet photograph to date, having sold many large fine art prints to various dancers, collectors and ballet enthusiasts. It is also the most difficult print to produce that I have ever made, with the very time intensive "chemical etch" procedure; it usually requires about three tries in order to obtain one which I feel is successful. I have included an image of it above, but unfortunately the scanning procedure does not provide quite the same three dimensional effect as the original; even so, I still think that it has an interesting look.

It is interesting that every dancer seems to have a different "look", and if I like that look it is particularly exciting to work with that dancer, experimenting with different techniques and procedures in the studio until I can a obtain a photograph that captures the image I want. The studio photographs are usually taken with studio flash lighting; the "Dancing Feet" image is an exception, and was taken with available window light.

A High key study of a dancer from the The Washington School of the Ballet in my Studio, before she joined the Company. / Elizabeth

Melissa, a ballet student, in a marvelous jete'

"Ballerina Silhouette" / Alejandra Alejandra was a Guest Soloist dancer at the Washington Ballet a number of years ago. She was from Brazil, and had a wonderful "dancer look" about her. You can see more photographs of her at my ballet web site, at http://www.ballet-photography.com.

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I hope that you have enjoyed my dance photographs. Thank you for visiting my web site, and I hope you continue on to the Artisitic Gymnastic Section which is next. Just click on the appropriate link below to take you there.

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