Go easy, it's my first post.
After many months of deliberation and discussions with fellow Lightpainting Photographers, it's time for me to start posting my images to the HIVE.
So I thought I'd kick things off by starting from the beginning of my journey into Light Painting Photography. Dancing Light was my first LP project and the only gallery of printed images I've ever done. The inspiration came from my background in Hip Hop and Bboy culture and only stopped Breakin' about 3 years ago (I'm 52 years old). So combining my love of the dance and my newly acquired Light Painting interest was a no brainer.
I had purchased a few single colour LED strips from Maplins (remember them!) as I had been using them on a home made light wand for the previous year. I cut the strips up into just 3 LED's per section and wired them up to a single 9volt battery. The LED strips were attached with skin tape to the dancers wrists and ankles and the wires from each strip were taped down their arms and legs and into the battery connection which was tucked or taped to their waist.
The equipment used, apart from the LED's was just an off-camera flash which was triggered by hand, rear curtain style, a Sony A230 DSLR (remember them) and a cable shutter release. I thankfully had free use of the main studio at Pavilion Dance South West in Bournemouth and shot them all in 5 sessions.
Dancing Light - Headspin
The easiest images to create were the Breakin moves and the Ballet standards as I knew how much travel and movement was involved and where to place the artist in the frame. The most difficult was the couples dances, modern and traditional ballroom styles as I had no experience and was a steep learning curve. Luckily I had some brilliant and very open minded, professional dancers to work with.
Dancing Light - Cha Cha Cha
To list the dance genres I worked with - Breakin, Ballet, Traditional and Modern Ballroom (many styles), Wacking, Voguing and Locking. All of the dancers are artists in their own right, and I greatly appreciate the effort, time and positivity they gave freely.
Dancing Light - Sissone
I hope you enjoyed reading my 1st post and if you have any questions I'd be happy to answer. 馃榿
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