Dance Photography on the Royal Mile

Doing a personal photoshoot on or near the Royal Mile during the day isn’t practical at all, given how busy the place is. Later at night, though, it is much quieter and there are plenty of closes or side streets suitable for a shoot.

I met with dance artist, aerial yoga teacher and jewellery designer Pirita Tuisku on a cold autumn evening. On a personal shoot, I just like to get started taking pictures, warm up and then see where it goes. I don’t have any expectations as to the quality of the first photos.

On this night, we found an area just off the Royal Mile, and I noticed the textures fo the twigs and wall. There were virtually no colours, so I decided to experiment with a magenta gelled speedlight on the background.

dance artist Pirita Tuisku crouching down near the Royal Mile, Edinburgh
These low poses were quite challenging to photograph as I didn’t want to lay on the ground.
dance artist Pirita Tuisku crouching down near the Royal Mile, Edinburgh
This pose looks much easier than it is.

We then moved to an area close to St Giles Cathedral I had used previously for light painting. I love all the shapes lines and texture this location provides. Breaking a pattern with a human subject is a good recipe for strong, graphic photographs.

dance artist Pirita Tuisku on the Royal Mile
Once my lighting was set up, I had Pirita go through lot of different poses.
dance artist Pirita Tuisku on the Royal Mile
I love the patterns produced by the columns and stones. Breaking that pattern draws attention to our subject.
dance artist Pirita Tuisku on the Royal Mile
After I culled the pictures based on technical quality ( I had to use a longer exposure than I would have liked, so there was some ghosting in certain images), I let Pirita choose which poses she liked best.

 

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