Pete Tsai - Beautiful Motion

Whilst I was looking for more inspiration and examples similar to my ideas I came across a Flickr page.  The photographer's name is Pete Tsai and he has a series and a 'set' of images called 'Beautiful Motion', even from the title of this set I knew that it was exactly what I was looking for, for my research.

His series had motion used with a black backdrop, exactly how I wanted to do my own images.  From the small picture of the whole set you can really see a difference in some of his images.  I would like to try out a number of different things to hopefully get some great final motion photographs.

Pete Tsai's first images of the set, were of a model called Julia who is a modern ballet dancer with a big red silk scarf.  Tsai says that his passion for shooting dancers comes from the beautiful images by Joe McNally and what he has done with motion blur and repeating flash.  These images below are a single exposure with the photographer triggering the left flash and the camera triggering the right side flash.  The camera was a Genesis 300b in a 40" brollybox, Camera right a Ranger Quadra with Deep Octa, everything was triggered with pocket wizards.

This dance motion image below was for a workshop on how to shoot long exposure motion, with 2 dancers and one martial artist.  On these images the leap was a bit too late but the arms and legs are extended out nicely.  They are shot with 2 lights, Camera right a 53" Elinchrom midi octa with Genesis 300b and a 100 hot light at centre snooted with cinefoil, triggered with Elinchrom Skyports.  Also used in this shot were 2 small LED lights held by the model.
This is the first image of his using LED lights and is something that I would consider trying out. I think it could be a very effective light source and could be very interesting.

These three images below were for a Full Moon Fire Jam and they were shot using Infrared.
The photographer shot with a full spectrum camera and infrared flash.  It is a very cool effect how there are colours but they are altered by the Infrared light as well.  The flash is invisible which is also a nice effect for the final images.  Strobist info: one SB800 with IR filter to camera left, triggered by a Elinchrom skyport speed.  I particularly like the middle image as I like how the lines of light have moved in an odd shape around the person in the middle, also the way the background has been set a lot darker so that the light stands out more.

The set of two images below this piece of text show a long exposure motion image.  There is a single exposure of 5 seconds in length.  The lighting has a balance of ambient burn-in as well as flash freezing action both sides.  The model has been required to spin a lot to test out different position techniques.  You can see the shiny star trails from the dress as the exposure has captured her moving across the frame. Both images are 5 seconds long.  Taking into consideration will be the length of the exposure with the lights used, I might not use flash at all in my images which would be the main difference here.

So the two images below this text are the martial arts guy and a ballet dancer.  These were taken for a workshop the photographer held about long exposure motion.  Martial arts moves are super fast, so more light was needed to capture him in motion, 2 lights were used with a hot light centre snooted.  The female image was shot with 3 lights and also the hot light at centre snooted.  I think both are very effective ways of creating moving motion.  They each show how the move had progressed into a different move or shape.  I will consider similar techniques but maybe without flash and see how that goes.

And the last images I am showing for my research base from Pete Tsai's "Beautiful Motion" series are these two images below.  These images have had me thinking about using a different light source of LED lights into the long exposures that I'm thinking about.
The image on the left is the martial arts guy showing quite a lot of movement within the one shot, so there was more light on him and a longer exposure time. I think that this is a really cool effect and shows him moving in all kinds of ways whilst holding the LED light, the light shows how he sweeps his arm motion in certain moves. Im not sure of the big light source coming in from the top left of the image, its almost like a distraction.

The image of the female on the right, shows her simply walking across the frame holding a LED light.  The light is very bright and captures lovely, her bright red leotard shows up well, but maybe a bit too bright for my liking.  I like this image though as it has a similar look to the ideas I have in my head of my ideas.  I am not planning on using flash in my images but will most definitely try out the LED lights.