It was a while since I did a ballet shoot, so yesterday I met up with Naomi Stewart, Philippa Carr and Leora Amy Taratula-Lyons from the committee of the Cambridge University Ballet Society. We were photographing at Emmanuel College here in Cambridge. To prepare I had spent some time in the morning looking at YouTube clips and when I found a nice pose I liked I snapped a picture with my phone. A very quick and dirty solution, but it got the job done. One of the things I saw and liked were poses where the dancer was out of balance. It added a sense of suspense to the photo.

The weather report had been uncertain most of the week, and on the day it said rain at 17:00, so we had moved the shoot to 16:00 and I had brought both an umbrella and a plastic cover for the camera. My plan was to do a “Singing in the Rain” inspired photo shoot once the sky opened itself. However, we got lucky and the rain clouds passed overhead without dropping their load. It was a relief, but secretly I was a little bit disappointed. Rain would have made the photos look shiny with all the reflections in the wet stones and puddles.

Is this the start of a Cambridge Ballerina Project? I had a lot of fun, and plan on doing this again. Perhaps something on the streets of Cambridge next time. If you want to see more ballet photos, have a look at my old blog posts Morning Ballet with Tara Thean, Urban Ballet and Street Ballet with Joanna Vymeris.

– Johannes