Dancer Tuure Kaukua, dancing incognito. Key light was a gridded speedlight and fill was a 60" shoot-through umbrella positioned right behind the key. I photographed Tuure from under the key light.
Tuure Kaukua is a talented young dancer who relocated from Oulu to Helsinki last year. Our loss, but he was up for another photo shoot in my studio this June when he was visiting home.
I originally photographed Tuure last year in my pop-up studio at Njetwork Inn and happened to post an outtake from that shoot on social media. Tuure caught it and wanted to come in for a new sitting. Just like before, the idea was to make some energetic photos with dance and movement as well as strong portraits while we were at it.
I asked Tuure to bring a few clothing options as usual and I liked the combination of his turquoise-ish jersey with the bright yellow backdrop. Photographing dance is always a challenge and in a studio setting it's much more difficult: how to convey the energy of the dancer in such a confined space? The yellow paper also happened to be a half roll, so it's roughly 1,4 meters (or 4,5 feet) wide. Not much room to maneuver!
Tuure rocked out, however. I had him put on some music he liked and away we went. I told him to get into the music and I'd follow him with my camera, catching him in mid-motion.
I preferred a bright look, like sunlight, for this set, pushing the highlights almost to where they clipped.
I had Tuure close to the backdrop because A) we shot along the short side of the room and B) I liked the shadows. Mostly because of A, though.
The yellow backdrop stuff was a little constricting because of the limited space we had. We switched it up to the full-width white backdrop that I have set up in the studio and we got him dressed in all black, too. Lots more space for Tuure to kick it up and for me to photograph him, so we both got loose after the little warm-up on the yellow. We cranked up the tunes as well and he was well into it.
Levitating Tuure. Lighting is one strobe in a 41" umbrella softbox from the camera's direction.
We also made some portraits and in fact started the session with them, just so the talent (and the photographer) wouldn't be all out of breath and red in the face. I had Tuure plant himself on a chair but wanted to get him expressive even though he was firmly sitting on a stool. Just because you're stuck in one place it doesn't mean you can't be expressive and Tuure came up with some great stuff.
Baggy shirt, let's work with that. Lighting is one strobe with just the reflector. There's a black flag to camera left.
We played some music in the room for these, as well. Just so happened that the Aphex Twins' song Avril 14th came on in my playlist and we stuck that on repeat. It really helped Tuure get in another mindset.
I shot all of these in color and submitted both color and BW versions of these portraits, but I really dig the high contrast black and white for some of these.
This was one of my definite favorites. I included the color version of this in my portfolio but here it is in black and white.
Tuure brings a lot of energy to a photo shoot and we had a great time. Maybe next time we'll head out on location instead of the studio?