P#25 Q5: What Can Parents Do to Get Better Dance Photographs of Their Children?
Joe McNally offers advice for all the moms and dads of the world who want to capture extraordinary dance photographs of their kids
When most parents take dance photographs, it's a matter of aiming the camera at the recital stage and shooting random shots. If you want your child's dance photos to really stand out, you need to take a different approach. Joe McNally offers some advice.
Capturing Memories and Dreams
Joe McNally: Dance photographs of children are some of the best dance pictures ever made. One of the things I would recommend highly is to photograph behind the scenes. Photograph that which the audience has not seen.
Those are some of the more wonderful moments of a young dancer's life -- waiting in the wings. That sense of anticipation, the mixture of fear and awe in a kid's eyes when they're just about to go on stage, the mayhem and the melee in the dressing room -- especially when you have a bunch of eight-year-old ballerinas trying to get themselves together.
They go on stage, and people are shouting and nobody knows which end is up. That in of itself can be an absolutely wonderful moment in time and life. Reflections make great dance photographs too. Look at the dancers as they prepare themselves in the mirror. All of that stuff -- all those things that people never see.
When you go to a recital you go and sit down in the theater and see the pristine version of what you're supposed to see on stage. I've always been an advocate of trying to see that which you are not supposed to see or that which leads up to the moment on stage. Those moments are always fascinating to me.
If you're a parent, you've got a natural leeway. You bring your kid backstage. See if you can stay back there for a few minutes. Bring your camera with you and try to get those off moments -- those wonderful little to-the-side exchanges between young dancers that are really telling and really true.
Audri Lanford: I love it. That is such wonderful advice. Thank you so much.
Joe McNally: The dance on stage can sometimes be a little sterile. Some of the richness happens in the wings where you can't see. To the best of anyone's ability, try to get back there and get a glimpse of it, even if it's only for a couple of minutes. That's how you get dance photographs that matter.
In Conclusion
If you want your child's dance photos to really tell a story, get the shots that matter -- and remember, those aren't always the ones taken when your son or daughter is on stage. Sometimes it's the behind-the-scenes dance photographs that capture the best memories.
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