Perspective is everything (Patreon)

The first time I worked with Poppyseed Dancer was when I hired her for 2-day a dance workshop in an abandoned factory. After the workshop, we spent two days in Sweden in, let's say questionable weather. But we still managed to make some extraordinary images such as the image above.

Shooting dancers in classical ballet poses is like walking a tightrope. So many things have to be aligned fo obtaining correct dance poses - and adding the challenges an outdoor environment offers does not make things easier.

Here is the BTS movie from that particular shoot. 

Composing something like this is all about stacking the odds in your favor: The environment I chose has good leading lines that are pulling the eye into the frame. But they can easily be overpowering, so I used an 85mm f. 1.4 to keep the background out of focus and thus attention on Anna.

It's the same reason I chose to make a monochrome image: the greenery is much too attention-grabbing. I used the fact that the greenery was uniform to finetune the lightness by making a B&W conversion that carefully balances the red and green channels. This method allows me to define the exact difference in brightness between Anna's (red) body against the (green) background. It is a magic way to "pull out" a subject from a background with great accuracy.

My post-production course explains how this works.

I moved Anna a little into the alley to keep the light directional as it was completely overcast, and I wanted proper accentuation of Annas' beautiful back and legs.

And finally, as you will see in the video, it's all about shooting at the exact right moment when her entire body is tense and on point (pun intended).