The Iowa Photo: Working in the dark

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I was mostly concerned with ensuring that the shots of Elegance Academy’s pole dance fitness class were properly exposed to capture everyone’s facial expressions as they laughed and celebrated finishing a challenging routine.

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After some time, I made the decision to work with the darkness and frame the participants as silhouettes against the moody lights because the studio was somewhat dark. In addition to adding a different viewpoint to the narrative, the silhouettes would highlight the positions that the players were practicing and offer a fresh viewpoint on the area.

I decided to frame a participant doing a range of high-altitude motions in order to capture the silhouette. The gentle yellow light shone on the wall beside her in the front row. I saw that the light was going out as I was composing the picture, and the shadows along the wall obscured some of her figure. I made the decision to use the purple light to further define her silhouette when I took a photo of her in the mirror.

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