BLOG #102

10/16/15

Seems easy enough, doesn’t it? Boy lifts girl, voila!!! Yes, ballerinas are light, and male ballet dancers are strong. How else might an image like this occur? She, in a lovely weightless pose and he, lifting her seemingly effortlessly and moving with grace, on one foot, on demi-pointe. And yet to create this moment for a photograph, as the great Yuri Possakov and the incredible prima ballerina Katita Waldo do takes far more than strength and lightness. Years of intensely focused training, daily “classes,” and God-given gifts, are all necessary to perform this kind of ethereal magic.

The same lesson applies in photography: practice, repetition, and constant study lie behind the split second of shutter speed needed to capture an image. An implacable rule is that a picture can only be as good as its weakest part, and minimizing the weakness takes the same dedication shown by classical dancers. Of course, it helps to have brilliant, gifted and beautiful subjects.

Far from easy….