While dancers provide the technical challenge of capturing
movement on a still frame, placing the dancer within a context that tells the
story of a place or customs takes the photographer to that famous level of
contextualizing.
From a technical point of view, modern cameras provide the “machine
gun” shooting of dozens of frames a second hence the vast choice of choosing
the best shot. For an anachronistic photographer like me, 50+ year old film
cameras give me the choice of a frame every 3 seconds, which means that I would
miss capturing many of the moves of the dancer. Even then, I have only 12 shots in a medium format camera, or about 25 in a 35mm lightbox... (I say "about 25" since I roll my own film and often it is a guesswork.) So, either one needs to know the dance, seen that dancer before, or be
extremely lucky to capture a shot that goes beyond just a dance move.
I chose 6 shots of dancers each having a distinct character,
and a seventh that may qualify as a dance…
Dancer out of place
Here the “street” is a symphony hall. The dancer was out of
place in the sense that the formal attire of the symphonic orchestra
overwhelmed her presence. To the eye, her movements were too choreographed and
not spontaneous enough. Yet, at a shutter speed of 1/30th and wide
opened at f=2, the 85mm Jupiter 9 lens on my Fed-2 camera did freeze a move
quite gently. The eye of the dancer and the movement of the fan somehow isolate
her from the formal background.
2.
Dancer in control
This one is all emotion and passion. Contrary to the first picture,
this one does better not showing the dancer’s eyes. I often wonder if in a still photo passion is
better expressed with “eyes wide open” or “eyes wide shut”…
3. Dancer who does not like the photographer
Why some artists, when they perform in the street, wonder why
people take picture of them? It seems to
me when you have decided to perform in the street, you have become part of the environment totally
accessible to the public. Well, this Turkish dancer in Vienna did not care for
the picture I took, which made the picture better….
4. When all is not harmony
The New York Rockettes are world famous for their uniformity
in appearance and their impeccable timing , especially when it comes to their
legs. I took this one in New York and upon developing the roll, I realized that
the lens was too slow and the 100 ASA too unforgiving for an indoors shot. But
while the technical aspect of the picture is poor, it had captured a moment of
non-synchrony among these amazing dancer—the legs are totally uncoordinated making
the picture an unusual one for the Rockettes! One has to Google “New York
Rockettes” to see how different are the pictures they show….
5.
When one can only guess
This is a picture of shapes and monochromatic tonality. The
story can be anything, depending on the observer. What I like are the multitude
of lines, movement, and public celebration of a sunny day in Baltimore, by the
ocean side!
6.
Simplicity and Joy
One of my favorite street Tango dancing moments. Youth,
posture, eye contact and sharing of traditions. Nothing fancy in this shot from
Barcelona, yet one feels like being there can be a lot of fun!
7.
May be a dance?
In front of a hotel in Montréal. I shot this with
zone-focusing my 1935 Russian FED camera, and contre jour. Yes, I do have one
of these almost-a-century-old cameras… The lens of course is not coated and has
survived an amazing century of human history. I sometimes wonder how much of the past
century’s changes were captured by this lens that had an unknown number of
users before me. I have adjusted the
camera’s speeds a few times already, but the old springs (all original) and the
fatigue of the steel parts makes all speeds highly unreliable. So, even more
fun to see what comes out on the negative after I finish a roll!!
The lady was about to put her scarf on and I guessed that
she would do so using the movement of a matador. After I developed the
negative, I noticed that there was a man in the frame, which made me think of
the bull, and I kept the picture just for the fun of it.
© Vahé Kazandjian, 2014
