Ballet Zaida

I constantly look through the #BalletZaidaIgers tag on Instagram, and through the photos people send in through the Email, BalletZaida@Gmail.com and I’m loving what I see. The talent level of the dancers and the photographers is beyond amazing, and I think the photos are really inspiring. (I’ll be doing a blog post soon showcasing some of my favorite submissions.)

Even though the photos have been amazing, I believe there’s always room for improvement. So today I want to talk about 4 tips to make great ballet photos.

Tip Number 1: Body Blindness

When you take a ballet photo, don’t just look at the position of the body, look at the photo as a whole. Look at the environment the body is in, and how the line/position/expression of the body effects the environment around it.

Tip Number 2: Over-Editing

There’s a term photographers use called “over-editing.” It’s when a photo is so edited it becomes distracting, and it actually takes away from what’s going on in the photo. So just because you can apply a lot of different editing techniques doesn’t mean you should. What I personally do to avoid this is after I’ve spent some time editing a photo, if I feel funny about the editing I’ll leave the photo alone for 20 minutes, and then I’ll look at it again. Seeing the photo after having not seen it in a while generates a fresh reaction in my mind, and that usually gives me a good indication about how I feel about the editing that has been applied.

Tip Number 3: Take Photos

Just because you don’t have a 2,000 dollar camera doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take photos. Cell phone cameras are so nice nowadays you can take some great shots with them. It’s not about how many megapixels a photo has, it’s about what’s happening in the photo.

Tip Number 4: Explore

Don’t be afraid to try new things. Just because you haven’t seen any photos like the one you want to create, doesn’t mean  it’s a bad idea. It just means it’s a new one. What photographers generally do is try to create photos that they’ve seen by other photographers in magazines or online, which I think is a little boring. Because even if you fully achieve that goal and create the photo you’ve seen, then you’ve just created a nice copy of a photo. So keep trying new ideas and I’m sure they’ll be amazing.

I hope these tips helped. I love looking at other people’s dance photography, brainstorming, and sharing ideas. If you have any dance photography tips and want to share them, feel free to post them in the comments section.

I look forward to seeing more of all your great photos!

-Oliver Endahl

Dancer – Morgan Quinn.

Location – Griffith Observatory. Los Angeles, California.

Gallery – Asteria.

© 2012 Oliver Endahl

Dancer – Caroline Hearst.

Location – San Francisco, California.

© 2012 Oliver Endahl

This photo of Caroline was captured outside the Punchline Comedy Club in San Francisco. What drew me to this particular spot on location was the green ivy above Caroline, I thought it looked very pretty and would compliment Caroline’s outfit.

What I really like about Caroline in this photo is that, not only is her line gorgeous, and she looks amazing, but Caroline projects that feeling of being otherworldly graceful to the viewer. Which is a very rare quality.

-Oliver Endahl

( @OliverEndahl ) ( @BalletZaida )

Today’s blog post is an interview with ballet dancer, Jeanette Kakareka. The interview was done in December, 2011.

Jeanette is currently a trainee with the San Francisco Ballet School.

What music are you listening to lately?
I’ve been listening to Poison Control Center’s Sad Sour Future album.

What are you currently trying to improve about your ballet technique?
I’m always trying to improve my technique and I’m also always trying to get stronger. There’s got to be about a million things I see in the mirror every day that I’m working on fixing. I also have to remind myself to be patient so I don’t get overly frustrated too easily. Everyone’s body comes with a different set of strengths and weaknesses. I focus on my body, and what I have to do with the body that I have, to accomplish what I want.

What’s your favorite book?
Anne of Green Gables or The Time Traveler’s Wife.

What’s your current favorite ballet?
My favorite ballet will forever be Romeo and Juliet. Juliet is my dream role, far (far far far…) above anything else.

Have you thought about choreographing a ballet?
I’ve thought about choreographing something short, but I don’t have the confidence yet that I’d be able to carry it through. I never want anything to be just mediocre.

See any movies lately?
I saw the Muppets, which was hysterical, and the Descendants, which was heart-wrenching the whole movie. I loved them both.

What kind of pointe shoes do you wear?
I wear custom Bloch Alphas that have an extra hard shank and tip. When my shoes don’t arrive in the mail fast enough, I experiment. Right now I’m experimenting with some Freed’s I got upstairs from the company shoe room. I like them but they die too fast.

What’s it like doing a Ballet Zaida photoshoot?
It’s just you and the photographer so it’s really casual and laid-back. I also love photography and Oliver really knows what he’s doing, so I feel like I always learn from the experience.

Do you plan dance poses for the photoshoot ahead of time?
Sometimes I come up with a few and Oliver usually has some ideas of his own.

What’s your favorite part of the city of San Francisco?
Christmas time at Union Square is insane and I love it. I pretend I’m in NYC. I like crowds, just as long as I’m not in any big rush. I’m a fast walker and I pummel people down.

Any favorite place to shop?
Not in particular. I shop at a lot of different places.

How would you describe your personal fashion?
I wear what I want to wear. I usually want to wear big sweaters, boots, and scarves. I like pastels and dark colors. I love dresses.

Any favorite quotes?
“I wish you a wrestling match with your Creative Muse that will last a lifetime. I wish craziness and foolishness and madness upon you. May you live with hysteria, may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world.”
- Ray Bradbury

What’s something that surprises people about you?
I guess it surprises people how much I eat.

Get any new leotards recently?
I bought a pink Yumiko this year.

Who inspires you?
There’s lots of dancers that inspire me. I think Alessandra Ferri is my favorite because of how she made every step purposeful. What also really inspires me is when a dancer can continue to improve over the years and not just get comfortable.

-Oliver Endahl

(@OliverEndahl) (@BalletZaida)

Today’s new photo features Caroline Hearst at the Legion of Honor.

This photo of Caroline was captured at the Legion of Honor, which is one of San Francisco’s Fine Art Museums. We only have access to this courtyard at the Legion during their open hours, so there was people entering and exiting the museum as we did our photoshoot. Which thinking about it, must have been pretty fun for those people. They go to the museum to see Fine Art and end up walking right through a ballet Fine Art photoshoot.

What I love about this photo of Caroline is her port de bras. (which in ballet terms, means her arms) It’s incredibly difficult to achieve this “swan” pose that Caroline is in. (I say swan pose because this pose is from the story ballet “Swan Lake”) It’s really difficult to achieve because the arm placement has to literally look like a swan. You have to get just the right amount of curve, softness, and placement in order to achieve the look, and I think Caroline nailed it in this shot. She looks very elegant, and very swan-esq.

-Oliver Endahl

(@OliverEndahl) (@BalletZaida)

Dancer – Caroline Echerd.

Location – Ocean Beach. San Francisco, California.

© 2012 Oliver Endahl

I was really excited to take photos of Caroline using balloons because I was interested in the idea of extending ballet lines with them, and this photo does just that.

Caroline’s ballet line starts with her tendu back, and instead of the line ending at the other end of her body, the line extends all the way to the balloons and perhaps beyond.

Another thing I love about this photo is the colors. I used my own mixture of vintage editing in Photoshop and added a tiny tiny bit of cross processing to achieve the colors of it. I also added some vignetting to the corners to really make the sky pop.

-Oliver Endahl ( @OliverEndahl )

A new photo has been added to the Sonatas gallery. The photo introduces dancer Angelica Tilton.

If you haven’t guessed it, Angelica Tilton is the sister of Abigail Tilton. Angelica and Abigail did a photoshoot together, which was a blast. Their both very talented and photogenic dancers. (The sister’s older brother Raymond, has been previously featured in Ballet Zaida. I know, talented family right?)

I think this photo of Angelica is stunning. The colors in the original unedited version of the photo were much more red/orange looking. I toned down the reds, and added more blue which in contrast to Angelica’s red lipstick and white attire, really makes it pop.

The sparkler and her expression are what really make the photo for me. I think with the gold sparks falling to the sand and Angelica’s confident but mysterious expression, it really creates a unique and interesting atmosphere.

I got the inspiration to use sparklers in photoshoots because just like bow-ties and fezzes, sparklers are cool. The sparklers we used in these photos only lasted about 10 seconds each at best, so it became a race once the sparkler was light to snap the photos.

The photo in the bottom right frame is actually a candid. Angelica was either talking or listening to her sister Abigail who was to her right.

-Oliver Endahl

Candy Tong’s Sonata was uploaded on Monday, January 16th.

Candy’s Sonata was taken in downtown San Mateo, which was a nice change from shooting in San Francisco. Downtown San Mateo was very elegant and the few people that were still out when we were shooting were friendly. (A shop owner even offered us his cafe to take photos in!)

Right when we arrived downtown I saw this fence that had lights on it. I think it was the fence for an upscale hotel, but I’m not totally sure about that. Whatever it was a fence for, I knew right away we were going to utilize it.

Candy was excellent at performing the various poses I suggested to her. She took each pose and made it her own, which was great. I was very excited when we captured some of these shots because I had been looking a while to find a location with this many lights at it.

Today, a new Sonata photo was added featuring dancer, Emma Rubinowitz.

The location used in this photo is a staircase in San Francisco that leads up to the PunchLine comedy club. I like using this location for 2 reasons. The first is that the lighting is gorgeous, the natural soft light looks great at anytime of day. The second is that the staircase is fairly hidden so we only get the occasional passerby.

As always during a Ballet Zaida photoshoot in San Francisco, it was freezing. I was cold wearing jeans, a shirt, and a leather jacket, so Emma must have been sweating bullets.

All the poses Emma hits in this photo were made up on the spot. I took several shots of each pose during the shoot, then later selected the ones that flowed together the best.

The photo in the upper left corner was the toughest one to choose, because I had a lot of photos of that same pose that also included Emma’s hands. After trying out several different combinations though, I decided to use a shot with neither of her hands showing. With the version I ended up choosing I assume if the viewer looks at that frame, the viewers focus will start at her necklace, then move down to her tutu, or down her left arm. Which will lead the viewer to either a different frame, or Emma’s name.

Emma’s Sonata showcases a great balance of grace and power.

-Oliver Endahl

This Monday a new photo will be added to the Asteria album introducing dancer, Shannon Tse.

Today I want to talk about the first new Ballet Zaida Gallery of 2012 titled, “Sonatas”

The idea to post ballet photos in multiple frames has been on my mind for a long time. The first time I really played around with multiple frames in one photo was in the Felicity Gallery. Although the Felicity Gallery is very different from the Sonata Gallery. The reason the Felicity Gallery had multiple frames was to help tell the story of the Gallery. (Also, the black and white photos in the Felicity Gallery were all taken with an iPhone 4. The photos in the Sonata Gallery were all taken with my nice digital SLR cameras.)

I originally experimented with the cropping and framing of the first Sonata photos from a photoshoot I did with Caitlin McAvoy. When I edited the photos we got from her shoot I had 4 photos in the frame, with no space for text. However after much editing, I decided having 3 photos and text for the dancers name was a more powerful photo.

After I finished a few of the Sonata photos, My sister Alanna and I began brainstorming a name for the Gallery. “Sonatas” was one of the first names I thought of, and after we threw around a couple other ideas, we both felt Sonatas fit the Gallery just right.

What I like about the title “Sonatas”, other than the fact that it’s a beautiful word, is the description of the word.

“An instrumental composition, usually in three or more movements” – Dictionary.com

Caroline’s Sonata was the first new Ballet Zaida photo of 2012, and the first photo in the Sonatas Gallery.

The pose for Caroline’s Sonata was originally inspired from the Degas ballerina sculpture. (The nickname we used for this entire Gallery before we decided on Sonatas, was “Degas”) We altered the pose a little, Caroline’s fourth is more crossed, her arm is holding her elbow, and her head is looking down and to the left, but the inspiration is still there.

Abigail’s Sonata was created at Ocean Beach in San Francisco.

Something I really enjoy about the Sonatas, is that each one is very unique. Abigail’s showcases her nice crossed fifth, her elegant hands, and her incredibile back flexibility that creates a beautiful spiral shape. (That spiral shape is a very challenging pose.) Abigail’s Sonata is very different from Caroline’s, but they’re both incredibly pretty.

I hope you enjoy the Sonatas as they are uploaded, there is many more to come.

-Oliver Endahl

What do you like about the new Sonata photos? Leave a comment on Facebook and share your opinion with us.

http://facebook.com/balletzaida

Today’s blog post is written by Alanna Endahl. 

Here at Ballet Zaida we love fashion, from the newest trends in clothing to the newest nail polish and make-up and hair styles, we’re always looking for new ideas and inspiration for our photos. Often Oliver and I will email and text each other with new ideas or photos of fashion and magazine spreads. We try to take a little piece from everywhere and anything, till we come up with a look that’s our own.

Lately I’ve been spending my free nights going on various online stores looking at dresses, or bags.. I love both. Usually I’m looking for Vintage things. I tend to love the style of the 50′s a lot, but I also love non-vintage buys.
For that I’ll always check out ASOS, because I love the wide range of dresses they offer. From short sparkly party dresses to long flowing day dresses and from clutches to messenger bags, they have it all.

What I love about this dress is the shape, how it slightly flares out, the mesh top, and how much detail is in the lower portion of the dress. The top of the dress is slick and form fitting, I find it to be super unique and classy having the mesh top mixed with the flared out bottom. It’s something you don’t see very often in dresses now-a-days.

This dress does the perfect job of mixing modern and slick with a bit of old and cute.

I’m big fan of finding unique pieces of jewelry anywhere I can, but usually I like to shop for jewelry from local small boutiques or online at Etsy.

Here are some lovely gold flower earrings by JewelryDeli on Etsy.

I find gold jewelry very warm and tend to really love it during the holiday season. Along with that, I also love flowery things! So these earrings are a two in one win for me, and are just perfect at any time of the year!

More Gold… I know, I can’t help it though! I’m pretty sure I’m a few years late on the trend of thin and small necklaces, but I recently fell in love with them.
Here’s one of my newer discoveries! The “ Something Blue” necklace from Sevgicharms on Etsy. I’m in love with anything that has this color blue, but to be on a thin necklace at the same time equals perfection for me.

Don’t forget to check out our Ballet Zaida Calendars! We’re selling two different types and they make wonderful holiday gifts! Buy one before they sell out!

http://balletzaida.com/Ballet_Zaida/Ballet_Zaida_Prints.html

Happy Tuesday everyone!

~Alanna