Month: April 2011

Sometimes things don’t always go to plan, but I somehow seem to always get lucky when they don’t…

My nearest (and very well-equipped) studio, The Works, had a not-the-royal-wedding party, with the studio open to any photographers and models who wanted to come along. I’d been in touch with two local models that I’d planned to shoot at some point, and they were both agreed to come along that day. The first model didn’t show up, despite being in touch the previous day. Apparently the second model showed up, and left a few minutes later. Later I found a message from her saying that she couldn’t find me (despite my being in the studio, along with a dozen other people)!

There were a handful of models who had come along, and one was accompanied by her younger sister, who had never modelled before, but fancied giving it a go. After a few minutes of talking with her, I found out that she danced ballet, so I showed her some of my photos from the Cambridge Ballerina Project. When she got to the photos from my latest shoots with Zoe, she recognised her from ballet classes they used to take together. Small world. Izzy now dances at Tring Park school, and I also found out that last year’s winner of So You Think You Can Dance UK, Charlie Bruce, was also from that dance school.

It’s only when she started posing en pointe, and leaping over and over to get the shot, that I realised she was of the same calibre as Zoe, and we got plenty of beautiful dance photos. I then let some other photographers have a go, but came back to shoot some non-dance photos with her too, and she also shone there.

Hopefully we’ll do a shoot for the Cambridge Ballerina Project soon…

More photos from this shoot can be found at http://claude.gallereasy.com/gallery/364/

Lizzie had seen many of my ballet and dance photos, and as an ex-ballet dancer herself, was keen to have some dance photos taken around Cambridge before she left university for a job in London.

Become a fan of the Cambridge Ballerina Project on Facebook (http://facebook.com/camballet), where you can see more photos from this shoot.

The second of my ballet photoshoots with Zoe, where she managed to impress me even more than she did in our first riverside shoot. This time, we headed to the Sidgwick Site, where many of the Arts and Humanities faculties of the Univeresity of Cambridge are based. This time, we got the best of the evening sun, and the location had plenty of striking architecture to contrast with Zoe’s beautiful lines and graceful figure.

Feedback on the Facebook page for the Cambridge Ballerina Project confirms my thoughts that these photos are some of the best yet from the project.

I met Zoe during Inspired, the ADC contemporary dance show, in January. She danced a duet with her older sister, but I wasn’t able to get many photos of their piece, as my piece followed theirs. During Zoe’s backstage warm-up, I noticed that she was a very talented ballet dancer – with obvious potential for a great Cambridge Ballerina Project photoshoot. Needless to say, she far exceeded my expectations, and because of unpredictable weather, we ended up doing two photoshoots within a week.