Conservatory Ballet: Le Petite Nutcracker
I am starting to work with the Conservatory Ballet in Reston, a town in Fairfax, Virginia in the Washington DC area, in a new capacity, as a professional photographer. Having done some computer networking and technical assistance work for them over the last year or so, I proposed helping them shoot their performances/events and portrait sessions. This past weekend I shot my first performance in an “official” capacity and I think the images came out well. We’ll see if anyone agrees and decides to buy them :-)
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I love them. Are any of the children yours :)
No, not in this show. My daughter is in the “big” Nutcracker at the Center Stage in Reston in a few weeks:
http://conservatoryballet.com/news.htm
Wow, you take wonderful pictures.
Bill again in the UK. Well done Carl. Of course with subject matter like that you can hardly go wrong! I think the B&Ws strike the eye particularly. Possibly because B&W is now refreshingly rare – which is praise by default I suppose.
The B&W of the girl sitting is one of those where I would have agonised ‘How much to crop?’ You have left plenty of foreground in. Fine!
Interesting that she is left-of-centre but her eyes are looking slightly to her left which pulls the composition back to the centre.
Yes, and she’s pretty as well!
I’m experimenting with really low light levels with my dance group. I ask them to try to keep their faces still and swirl their bodies which helps with the long exposures.
Thank you Bill. I appreciate the nice comments. I shot these around ISO 1250 so the images are a little grainy, but for the average 5×7 or 8×10, it will look great. That’s existing light photography. I am not allowed to use any flash during performances.
I am considering a Nikon D3 to help with low light options. Its expensive, but sample images seem to show it will shoot up to 3200 ISO without showing much if any noise/color artifacts. I have to see it to believe it and I will tomorrow. But if true, this would be a great asset to me.
Cropping is always a personal taste. But I agree with your comments and the crops work on these for the points you raise.
And for some reason B&W is making a come back. Perhaps it is because we have so many images these days as its just about free to make them….cameras for $100, no processing fee, instantaneous viewing of the results…even my cell phone takes a (cruddy) picture. I think when people see a B&W or a toned image it draws their attention a little bit more in much the same way a uniquely cropped image might. Grab the person’s eyeball. That’s pretty much it :-)
Thanks again,
Carl
Wonderful, as a ballerina myself i say faboulous and wonderful. I am doing a progect on ballet and i will defintly use one of you pictures for one of my posters!