Light Painting A Dancer – Karen

I have been looking to work with dancers for a while. I know I enjoy working with musicians, because I can relate to the fact that they really are into their work. It is their passion. And I imagined dancers would be similar in that respect.

Since at that time of year the weather in Scotland is quite wet and cold, Karen and I decided to do the shoot indoors, at Shapes Fitness Studios in Edinburgh. The location is rather barren, save for a mirrored wall. I therefore decided that I would play with reflections of Karen in the mirror. And since light painting requires the subject to remain as still as possible, we started with Karen sitting on the floor to make it as easy as possible on ourselves.

Dancer and choreographer Karen Mc Arthur and her reflection at Shapes Fitness Studios, Edinburgh — I did not expect the background windows to show up as clearly during the four second exposures I used to light paint Karen. As it turns out, that was a really pleasant surprise! The street lights gave the windows an orange glow, which I felt didn’t suit the mood and colour scheme of the photograph, so I changed that colour to blue in post.

Having a large mirror in the frame is quite tricky when light painting, because I needed both Karen and her reflection to come out nicely but I cannot see through the camera when I’m close to the model light painting with my LED light. So I needed to do a few test runs to see where to light from in order to avoid nasty reflections in the mirror.

Dancer and fitness instructor Karen McArthur at Shapes Fitness Studios, Edinburgh — Same location, different pose and camera angle

I also decided to play with coloured gels, as a bit of an experiment. In the end, I’m quite satisfied with the results and especially with the experience gained working on this project.