Grafton Cont.. 28.06.08

A bit of a sad day today! It was the last of my sessions with Zoe’s dance class. I have LOVED… the time I have spent there with the girls. They really did cement for me my belief in how important dance, exercise, or rather a passion for something is, especially when you are young.  It forms who you are as person in later years, how you approach things, your coping strategies.

Today we had a bit of fun,  the girls changing into outfits numerous times did improvised dancing, they couldn’t decide on leotards on or off, off or on, causing much tom foolery.  It really reminded me of my childhood dressing up days, of what I believe to be free -spirited, fun times, giggling, innocence, confidence. I have concentrated on trying to achieve an air of this through movement within the images, in the hope that it translates as “Free”. The blur is therefore of great importance to this project, as opposed to the images often associated with dance, posed and perfect. Children are not made of such things all of the time!

I hope you enjoy some of today’s session. 

Even Jess the dog made it in!!

Some of my favorites, hope you like them too!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grafton cont..”The Group”

Today was one of those days, where I felt like I should have remained under the covers. A busy weekend, my husband was off to register for his Triathlon in Windsor, Jacob was being looked after by his auntie, whilst I, was manically trying to sort my equipment out for today’s shoot.”The Group”. I had intended to shoot this on a borrowed medium format camera, the Bronica. Best laid plans and all, the camera back jammed after many attempts at manually winding the film on, I then discovered my husband with bike and bags had loaded the car and was off. Leaving me with a heap of equipment… I booked a cab, and realised today’s shoot was not going to happen on the Bronica! This is the only one I felt captured the girls as I had hoped.  The others are the out takes. I think I would like to, at some point, re-do the colour, these are the digital. I am waiting for the B/W film to come back, so we’ll see if there is something better in those!

The first is, pre-post. The thing I always hate about digital is the amount of work you have to do to the image after you’ve taken it. As you can see, the first is lack lustre, flat. Whilst the second works better being slightly more contrasty grainy, still I am not quite there with this one!

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Now, the fun part, thankfully and generously all the mums have agreed to let the girls participate in the individual portraits. So I have another 8 to do. I can’t wait.