– Dance Photography with a Prima Ballerina –
Sarah Davey –
I had the honour of spending a morning with Canadian ballerina, Sarah Davey one Saturday back in June. Within minutes I fell in love with the art of dance photography. Simply watching Sarah’s moves, poses and jumps was amazing enough, but freezing the moment in time to capture a small piece of her gracefulness, her strength, her ability and her story left me wanting to shoot more.
Even watching her get ready – putting on her shoes, stretching, refining poses in the mirror before the shoot was magical to me. I did gymnastics and soccer growing up, so dance is quite foreign to me. Sarah chuckled more than once as I asked her to “Do that jump thingy where the arms go this way and the legs kind of go like this” – followed by me flailing my arms and legs in various directions. No matter what I requested though Sarah pulled off something amazing for me to capture.
Sarah was three years old when she first began dancing and has been working hard at it since then. She’s performed in an impressive list of ballets from Swan Lake, to the Nutcracker and many more including a performance at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. Read and see more of Sarah here.
Not only is Sarah extremely talented, but she is also exquisitely beautiful.
When it comes to the jumps, dance photography is a little trickier than I anticipated. I have to admit there were a few shots where I pressed the shutter release too early, or too late – just before or just after the pinnacle of the jump. Thankfully Sarah was extremely patient, and is used to training 8 hours per day. She nailed every jump – I was lucky to nail some of them as well. 
This is definitely going down as one of my favourite sessions ever. Thanks so much Sarah for giving me this amazing opportunity. Thanks also to you Joan – Sarah’s mom – for setting this up and for all your helpful tips during the session. It was great to have the experience eye alongside the camera.
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