On Seeing, A Journal. #470

The Movement of Dance – Alexia Acebo

March 15, 2022

Recently, a sensational dancer, Alexia Acebo, came to the studio to collaborate with me to create images that demonstrate the movement that is dance and captured in a single frame of the camera’s exposure.

Nikko Keflas provided the styling.

This sort of shoot is technically very complicated requiring a dozen strobe packs and lights, powerful ambient light (for light painting) and some wizardry to coordinate the timing of the strobe flash with the camera’s shutter. Three adept and experienced assistants (Bart Babinski, Russ Heller and Aleks Kajarka) helped me realize these photographs.

It is my habit to periodically show each dancer (using an iPad) the images we are creating.  This allows corrections, “tweaks” as well as inspiration to shoot higher.  Having a dancer “all-in” like Alexia enhances the work significantly.