Drew Tommons

For my client work I am hopeful to produce some really powerful and successful ballet images for his portfolio. 

DREW TOMMONS

From looking at Tommon's images I have seen how lighting is such importance in producing dance images. Dance and theatre are very similar in how the photographs have such a strong feel in them. This combined with moody lighting helps to capture the feel of the dance move or theatre production. Tommon's uses the lighting within his images to get a gradient feel on the background of his images. This would have created by using 2 lights, however the light on the left side of the image would have been higher to light up the woman in the frame and then the 2nd light would have been position at the right of the frame, lower down to get these strong shadows. The grey background is created simply by bringing the subjects away from the background so that little light is hitting it. 

This is my favourite image out of the selection of images that I chose by Tommons. The way the lighting has been set up is extremely successful in showing the strength and structure of the model, which creates such an immense image. Drew Tommons must shoot with a fast shutter speed, so around 1/125th of a second to get these crisp and energetic images. I am excited to work with my model, who is passionate about his ballet dancing as I think the passion and intensity of it really shows in the photo. I am going to use black and white when processing my photos as I think it helps to create these shadows and highlights. I also think the black and white is very successful in showing the tone and strength of the muscles. 

The white leggings work really well, this is due to the gradual grey back drop. This image has really made me think about what clothing I need to get my model to wear. As my images are going to be black and white, I don't think using white leggings will be successful, a darker colour would fit the scheme better to help contrast the mid tones and highlights whilst still bringing the blacks and shadows. By having the light coming in from behind the model on the right, really interesting and moody shadows have been created. I think it's important to create moody lighting in these sort of images as I think it helps to create drama, theatre something very closely linked with ballet. I think this image is the weakest out of the set I have chosen as I don't like how the majority of the model's body is in the shadow, as I think it takes away the whole point of the photo created. To show and define the dancer's physique.