A Studio Weekend

This was a completely exhausting and thoroughly thrilling weekend. We did a big two-day portrait shoot for a dance studio and worked about 7 hours each day plus travel. I was up to my neck in pink tutus and sparkles.

It all went very well and we raked in money by the bushel-full from the ever-proud parents and grandparents. The equipment worked flawlessly, and my lovely wife did an AWESOME job processing orders and taking payments. She even handled the credit card sales with cool competence. Dina was a great help in posing the girls, as I know next to nothing about any of the major forms of dance or their associated geometries. Before this weekend I couldn't tell the Five Arabesques from the Seven Dwarves except by counting them.

My subjects were all wonderful, and seemed to share the same stage fright...except the Janda girls of course, who are used to being photographed and always ham it up for the camera. The girls ranged in age from about three to well into high school. Even though I rarely had to change the lighting setup, I made sure to pop the Sekonic meter for every girl because it makes them feel like supermodels.

The previous photographer who did this annual event was pretty rigid in her methods and did two shots per girl, in two different poses. I shot more pictures than she did and we tried more poses, and even did some action shots which turned out phenomenally cool thanks in no small part to the lightning-fast focus lock and shooting response of the mighty 5D Mk II.

I'll be posting some shots from the weekend as I go through them all. Here's one to get you started...we all loved this little girl. She was all attitude and unlike almost every other subject, she knew EXACTLY what poses she wanted to do.