Dancers from dance company

This photo is one of a series I did on a dance company. The quality

on this photo is not great because its only a small part of a 35mm

frame, on 800 speed film, in very contrasty light.

 

The dance was based on the film Moulin Rouge, and I was trying to

capture some of that atomosphere.

 

Laurie

It all has sort of a lack of sharpness to it that I dont much care fore (probably due to the grain and croping like you said). I dont much care for the expression on the face of the girl to the right, it looks a bit too unnatural. I like the similarity between the two girls on the right however.unfourtinatly I never saw Moulin Rogue, so I cant comment on that.

The golden light draws an attractive triangle from the hair of the girl on the left to the face of the girl on the right and finally to her thigh. To me, it essentially cancels out the girl in the background so she's not too distracting. Regarding the grain, I don't see it as a problem, but you could try to turn a possible defect into an effect by exploding the grain further through a contact with rougher grained film to stress the impressionist air. In all, I find the shot quite expressive.

Hmmm...I can't stop staring at the girl in the left (foreground). Her posture, the proud slight upward tilt of her head, the arm across her body - I love it. I wish that you could crop out the right half of the photo and just have the girl on the left with the dancer in the background as her sort of shadow.

I like to get in close, more and more lately and find this to affect the way I see others work too... I would crop the bottom at the left womans lower arm, the top just above her hand, and the right and left at each womans shoulders.

 

what I really wanted to do was crop this myself to see if I was right BUT my 'scratch disks are full' so I cannot open photoshop right now....

 

Tim.

I saw the movie, well part of it. I had to shut it off it was so annoying. The overall affect of the movie was distracting and cluttered with noise and color.

Now onto the picture. I think the grain actually works very well for this and as you are trying to capture the look and feel of the movie maybe more grain and harsher contrast would be good. I would not remove the dancer in the background just blur her out a little. The focus I think is the color and interaction of the two dancers in the foreground. Overall I like this picture much better than I liked the movie.

 

The grain does not bother me. I might have tried to adjust contrast and color balance a bit. The red tint is good as it helps locate the image but the overall balanced just seems off. I like the balance of the three dancers in their positions.

Nice complex lighting and composition; lots here to look at. The expressions are compelling and interesting. Are those compression artifacts or was this digitally manipulated?

 

Nice!

 

mjr.

I like how you managed to capture what seems to be the natural light of the dance in relatively low-light conditions. Many people have already commented on the technical aspects, allow me to comment on the atmosphere (since I did see the movie): a wider angle might have helped, since we can see only three girls and not a whole lot of what's going on in the dance itself. The fact that the image focuses only on them, rendering in detail, might make it seem that they were the subject of the photo and not the atmosphere itself, and sometimes you can't get both in the picture.

 

Do you have any other images where you pulled back? Perhaps the full frame might give us a better hint of the atmosphere.

 

BTW, the Moulin Rouge DVD has a multi-angle sequence of the Roxane tango that could make a lesson in itself on the subject of perspective and different focal lengths, not to mention composition. Just a side note.

Nice3 environmental shot here. I like the way you capture the story here.

I saw the movie and to me this picture doesn`t relate too much to it - which is not bad!

I think this picture is better than the movie in question.

Wonderful color composition here - the girl in the background ads depth and is not distracting to me - i wuold crop the picture just above the knee of the girl at right - just to have a strong diagonal which ends out of the picture - the grain is not an issue here for me.

 

Good work!

I would have preferred the person on the right to be in focus rather then the person on the left for the pose of the person on the right is more interesting. Kind of makes the photo. But for a dance photo this lacks dynamicity. Maybe you should also play around with the colours a bit they are a bit saturated, taking away from the poses that make the dance idea.

The composition is a bit plain, think about a bit more intruiging angle maybe, that would probably automatically make for a more dynamic photo.