Flamenco Dancers

I am so fortunate to be the stepmother to these talented, young and beautiful Flamenco dancers.  They have been training since they were 6.  One of the choreographies that they have learned is called the Bata De Cola and it involves a large ruffled skirt.  It is a challenge to look graceful while throwing around all of that heavy fabric,  but the 13 year old girls pulled it off nicely.  I brought the ever so talented, Veronica and Thalia into my studio to take portraits of them wearing these gorgeous costumes.
Veronica is wearing a black top and Thalia is wearing a white one which meant I would have to change the lighting slightly for each one.  I chose a black backdrop for a more classic look.  To make sure Veronica's black top did not disappear against the black BG, I had to put a hard edge light angled on either side of her coming from behind.  These lights were set at about head height.  A light softened with a chimera at a side angle from camera right, illuminates her face and the lace in the costume.  I did not provide any fill from camera left to make the effect quite theatrical.  Such pretty young faces do not need an abundance of soft light from all angles anyway.
Because Thalia's costume has a white top, I needed to soften the edge lights.  It is the edge light from the camera left that illuminates Thalia's face and the chimera from camera right showcases the skirts ruffles.  I struggled with arranging the skirt on the floor.  This gave me a new appreciation for the costume departments that I sometimes have the luxury of working with on a photo shoot.



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Camel Silhouette

Ian McShane

Thing