New Long Exposures of Ballet Dancers

These images I have found for this post are of some high class Ballet Dancers, but the images fit in perfectly with my ideas and almost make me want to do dance photography in the future.  Working with long exposures with dancers on stage and in big studio's.  As soon as I saw these images I thought they looked stunning, especially the top image.

These painting like photos feature ballet dancers at the "Emerging Dancer 2013" competition final in London.  Photographer Leon Neal of AFP/Getty Images took these creative shots which show a handful of dancers gracefully moving across the stage.

Six finalists prepared and performed two solos in front of a panel of judges at Southbank Centre's Queen Elizabeth Hall.  Though Neal didn't capture any long exposures of the overall grand prize winner, Nancy Osbaldeston, he did take some beautiful shots of Lauretta Summerscales, the recipient of the People's Choice Award (top two images).

These two images (above & below) look beautiful.  The colours in these two long exposure images are great, the lines of green and pinks really stand out against the black background.  You can see where her arms have been and can see her legs in the positions that she was whilst carrying out some dance moves.  The left hand side image shows what the dancer is actually wearing that creates all of the colours.  The costume she wears has green band sections around both arms and legs and blue legs with a bright pink around her hips. With all the horizontal lines on the costume, when the long exposure has been shot, the lines are stretched out as far as the move goes and however long the exposure is for.  

The first top image is definitely the strongest as it looks as if its been a shorter move that starts kind of sharply and ends sharply, so the colours are wavy but still in a line. You see how the dancer has moved with her arms and legs, with probably a few quick spins.  The image below is obviously a much longer dance move as the lines and motion blur goes on for longer. I still love the colours and think they blur lovely together. These are great examples for motion blur, long exposure photography.   

The next two Images below, show a single ballet dancer in a all white ballet dress.
The same technique has been used to exaggerate the horizontal lines through the long exposure as she moves across the stage.  This looks just as effective too.  I love how the skirt of the ballet dress looks bumpy and wavy along but also looks so smooth. There are wiggles of lines from her feet and body parts.  I also like the simplicity of the image, there is a huge plain black backdrop on the stage and there is a lot of room.  The other images shows the same dancer in all white, but it must have a very short exposure because it is not like the other images but just shows a short blur.  You can still see her face but her arms, dress and one of her legs are in motion blur, but the foot on point on the floor is in sharp focus, so it must have been the very start of a spinning move, but still looks fantastic in the set of images.

This last images from the set is clearly a Male dancer. He has not moved a lot, nor as fast as the other dancers, but this still looks mysterious and effective.  You can see the way he has moved it is just not as noticeable as the female because is wearing a dark colour leggings.  The white shirt is the main focus.  As a set of images it looks great but my favourite is the first image.

I would love to try out some images like this will a dance company or group but at this moment in time I can see it being rather difficult.  I also wouldn't have a stage to take the photos on.  On the other hand, My mum works in The Mick Jagger Centre in Dartford and they have big halls that have plenty of space to perform big dance moves in, the only trouble would be the lighting, so I would have to come back for something like this.  I will take away the long exposure technique, and try to apply that to my shoots, and consider what I would like the dancer to wear so that the colours will stand out.

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As mentioned below, this Photographer has only this images in his portfolio (its a little strange to have only one) But it is still a great image and looks just as good as the images above.  I think the colours of this dancers dress looks great against the black, the blue really pops out and the wavy lines look fantastic.

Colour, light and Exposure times are things I need to remember and think about over the next few posts to see how I will shoot my final ideas.