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Dance Photography

Onstage

If you look at my onstage dance photography you will notice that I don’t often take group photos or photos where everybody is in focus. My aim is to capture emotions even if somebody hardly moves or just stands there „doing nothing“. I want to capture moments as if I am onstage myself. I want to be right in the middle of the dancers rather than just being a spectator from the audience. This is the reason why I rarely use a wide angle lens. Instead I prefer a 135mm telephoto lens with the aperture wide open from 1.8 - 2.8. My aim is to capture one individual sharp in focus while the rest of the dancers and the props become blurry and part of the scenery.This allows the focus to be exclusively upon one dancer with a distinct emotion in a fraction of a second.

Dance Photography

Offstage

When it comes to dance photography offstage I am immensely inspired by „The Ballerina Project“ where the photos contain lots of „negative“ space around the dancer. The gracious and fragile figure of a ballerina is often the tiny little detail within the whole setting. Actually, I am not interested in watching classical ballet in the theatre. I am not interested in high jumps, quick turns, virtuosity or the story of a ballet. But I am fascinated by the body of a ballerina. For me, a more beautiful body than that of a ballerina does not exist, with her fragility, her grace, the harmonious and effortless movement of every bone, every tendon and every muscle ... like a fairy or an elf … a body like a thousand brandished brushstrokes, almost too sacred to touch.

Portrait Photography

Indoor/Outdoor

My absolute favorite photographer is Vincent Peters. He is like the Michael Jackson of photography for me. He manages to portray people in a timeless Hollywood flair and glamour, bathing them in a setting full of highly contrasted lights and shadows. I once followed one of Vincent’s masterclasses online. What I really found most impressive was that instead of using digital cameras and studio flashes, he still works with analog cameras, daylight and film lamps. If I could combine his style with the ballerina project, I guess I would have achieved everything I want to in photography.

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