maxhector photography: Blog

I've been looking at movement in photography in dance for some time, trying to find a subject and also manage a location in and around Canterbury. I had originally intended for a more typical studio based photography shoot, but for the type of shots I was looking for, I needed a much larger space than was available, indoors anyway. Consequently, these images are nothing like my original concept, but I am grateful for these challenges (isn’t life just full of them!!), as I came up with a much more interesting idea and learnt some new things along the way!

Lois Greenfield being my all time idol, her influence is as subtle as a freight train I know, I now have an even greater super fan complex.

There are so many things to think about when trying this type of portrait / movement photography and a good deal of planning.

I was shooting on a D90 with the following settings;

Aperture f/16,

Shutter speed 1/160,

WB auto

ISO 200,

Lens 18-55mm.

Tripod inverted to get close to the ground.

I used a 500w/s studio flash head on a 120cm softbox as my key light to freeze the movement. In addition to this I wanted some directional backfill light to sharpen the outlines and a little side fill to ease the shadows. However the daylight interfered with my infrared triggers so I was limited to one flash head. Radio triggers on order...

Next was the problem of composition. I wanted just sky surrounding the subject (me, I kid you not) and in order to do this, I had to jump higher than the six foot fence in my back garden. I used what seemed to me at the time as some very complex equations, in order to work out that, if I placed the camera level with the ground, angled up at a 45ish degree, and I was two metres in front of the camera, I would indeed jump higher than a six foot fence. I used a plumb line from the stop of the fence to the camera so I would know exactly the height I needed to achieve. Simple perspective in the end.

So position of camera and subject sorted, I had to set up the camera focus. Now, using a continuous focus seemed logical, and my camera had 3D tracking, even better. However, I wasn’t behind the camera to do this. I was in front of it. I used a 10 second timer and locked the focus manually to where I would be when I jumped before taking the shot on the timer.

And finally, there is the magical moment in movement described by Lois as the ‘peak moment’, when the subject is neither rising, nor falling, but hanging in the air. The downward movement is definitely more flattering than the upward, where the effects of gravity are most certainly evident. Because I was doing the jumping, finding the ‘peak moment’ actually came quite easily as I could feel it, however timing it with the flash was somewhat difficult, so I had to take over a hundred shots to find the few finals . Controlling my facial features through what was a rather strenuous activity proved much more challenging! Suffice to say, I took a lot of shots, my legs ached for days and I had a lot of fun!

Next up, I think it would be fantastic to try and re-run these shots with a subject in a wedding dress! Canterbury wedding photography just got interesting!

You'll find two of my jump shots in the Portrait Gallery, I hope you enjoy!

Michelle