Saturday, December 5, 2009
Saturday, January 3, 2009
3rd Annual Belly Dance Photography Marathon
This week ended my 3rd Annual Belly Dance Photography Marathon, which occurred mostly during the month December 2008 here in Silicon Valley. This month consisted of a gala show, one belly dance festival, and 10 separate studio photo shoots. This year my Marathon studio photo shoots were more selective, a trend I'd like to continue with into 2009.
I prefer to work with belly dancers who are seriously dedicated to their art, because that disposition very much matches mine, and so working together is much more synchronistic. The year before, for the 2nd Annual Belly Dance Photography Marathon in December 2007, I was playing "catch up" for numerous photo shoots that had not been possible to schedule. So in December of that year, I photographed some 45 belly dancers, though most were in two troupes. I did not want to repeat that so much, preferring to work more deeply creatively, and with fewer dancers rather than more.
Another thing I did this last December 2008 was force myself to use new lighting and other aspects of the photography. I did my first ever High Dynamic Range (HDR) belly dance photo, a technique surely of value for incredible skin tone results. Over this Holiday break time, I've also been improving my imaging skills, and have been learning the Adobe CS4 tool suite in more detail, as well as LightZone, and some other specialized digital skin care software. As part of this learning, I discovered that Photoshop CS4 has a method similar to the HDR technique for extreme depth-of-field.
I used the Lens Baby 3G for the first time in the studio, for the Cleopatra photo of Aazura Nour, below. I also did variations on my "Goddess Inner Light," which can be seen in the angelic photo of Mychelle, below. Lastly, I discovered a whole new vista, how to do a one-light Chiaroscuro lighting setup, and it worked fabulously well, shown in the photos of Eve, below.
Aazura Nour: Pink-Orange
Aazura Nour: Cleopatra
Mychelle: Angelic
Mychelle: Seated Lovely
Eve: demure
Eve: black-and-white
Eve: Virabadrasana
I prefer to work with belly dancers who are seriously dedicated to their art, because that disposition very much matches mine, and so working together is much more synchronistic. The year before, for the 2nd Annual Belly Dance Photography Marathon in December 2007, I was playing "catch up" for numerous photo shoots that had not been possible to schedule. So in December of that year, I photographed some 45 belly dancers, though most were in two troupes. I did not want to repeat that so much, preferring to work more deeply creatively, and with fewer dancers rather than more.
Another thing I did this last December 2008 was force myself to use new lighting and other aspects of the photography. I did my first ever High Dynamic Range (HDR) belly dance photo, a technique surely of value for incredible skin tone results. Over this Holiday break time, I've also been improving my imaging skills, and have been learning the Adobe CS4 tool suite in more detail, as well as LightZone, and some other specialized digital skin care software. As part of this learning, I discovered that Photoshop CS4 has a method similar to the HDR technique for extreme depth-of-field.
I used the Lens Baby 3G for the first time in the studio, for the Cleopatra photo of Aazura Nour, below. I also did variations on my "Goddess Inner Light," which can be seen in the angelic photo of Mychelle, below. Lastly, I discovered a whole new vista, how to do a one-light Chiaroscuro lighting setup, and it worked fabulously well, shown in the photos of Eve, below.
More on Belly Dance Legends in New England
One of the real treats from the second Belly Dance Legends of New England photo shoot this Fall was getting to see and hear live musicians who play in the area, often for belly dancers. Apparently, there is a quite a music scene in the New England area, and the musicians are very good.
The gentleman playing oud in the photo is Mal Barsamian, who is a very well known musician. I was so privileged to hear him play for a gig we had to travel quite a ways from Boston for. He made really beautiful clarinet sounds that I'd never heard before. After several hot sets playing the clarinet, he picked up the oud and wailed on that for many songs, it was incredible.
One of my 2009 belly dance goals is to understand the music much better, and of course learn a lot more about the musicians who have contributed to belly dance.
I was also privileged to photograph several belly dance Legends at this second photo Belly Dance Legends in New England photo shoot. Here are a couple of photos of the lovely Saadia from this photo shoot.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Belly Dance Legends in New England
In this middle of November, I traveled to the East Coast for a second photo shoot in a series devoted to documenting the history of the famous belly dancers and musicians in New England. This history is being preserved by my producer Alizah, who is a belly dancer, teacher, publisher, and writer in the Boston area. Alizah publishes a magazine called Middle Eastern Dance in New England. She also has a wonderful Sequins of Events blog too.
The rush photo above features a famous New England costume designer named Shadia. It was taken about mid-way through our mid-November week-end photo shoot, and I asked her to throw a shoe at me, which you can kind of see in the photo. Shadia is surrounded by several of her creations, which our art department hurriedly created on the photographic backdrop.
This was a really fun trip, all hosted by Alizah, who offered dazzling hospitality. This was a second round of photographing incredibly experienced belly dance lovelies, as well as a keener focus on the area musicians, many of whom are still playing, some three decades later. I got to photograph some of these music stars at two different clubs, so this was both a location and studio project.
The rush photo above features a famous New England costume designer named Shadia. It was taken about mid-way through our mid-November week-end photo shoot, and I asked her to throw a shoe at me, which you can kind of see in the photo. Shadia is surrounded by several of her creations, which our art department hurriedly created on the photographic backdrop.
This was a really fun trip, all hosted by Alizah, who offered dazzling hospitality. This was a second round of photographing incredibly experienced belly dance lovelies, as well as a keener focus on the area musicians, many of whom are still playing, some three decades later. I got to photograph some of these music stars at two different clubs, so this was both a location and studio project.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
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