Dallas – Fort Worth – Ballet – Dance Photography with Kaley Jensen.
Today I’m bringing you a blog post about one of my dance photography photoshoots with one of the nicest and talented ballet dancers in Dallas, Kaley Claire. Kaley and I met back in 2016 when she was a dancer with Ballet North Texas. I since then have been meaning to work with her, but we just hadn’t been able to make it happen until 2019. Kaley is currently dancing with Ballet Dallas and she has been super supportive and nice that she’s recommended my photography to her ballet dancer friends, so stay tuned for more ballet photography blog posts in the future. Kaley teaches pilates and she is also an instructor of ballet burn at The Ballet Burn Dallas.
Kaley and I scheduled our ballet dance photoshoot to take place outside The Eisemann Center for Performing Arts in Richardson, TX. We had initially thought about doing it at Perot Museum of Nature and Science, but we couldn’t find a date that would work since they get booked a lot of wedding pictures. We tried a few other places, but unfortunately none of them worked due to conflicts in schedule, so we decided to take ballet pictures on the streets near The Eisemann Center.
I met with her and after going through a few of her leotard collection we decided on a couple of soft colors to start with. I wanted to start with something basic and simple and use the sun as a main source of light on her. I am a big fan of using off camera flash or strobes with my photography, but since we were outdoors most of the times if I don’t have an assistant to hold my photography equipment accidents can happen. I’ve had to deal with a couple of flashes breaking during a photoshoot due to wind knocking them over. We decided to start with her in the middle of the street and use the lines to lead the attention to her after several tries and having to move back and forth away from the moving cars we were able to capture a picture that we were both happy with.
Moving on further to the other side of the block, I saw a sidewalk that cought my attention because of how the trees aligned. I’m a big fan of symmetry, so I’m always looking for symmetry on everything. After a few tries and also not being able to resist using an off camera flash I decided to have her do something in the middle of the sidewalk and also lower so that I could compose the picture with the trees framing her at the top. I was lucky that my wife Amy and my almost 2 year old daughter Zoey came along, so they were able to help me hold the light stand and keeping it safe so that the wind wouldn’t knock it down like previous dance photoshoots.
To your left you can see the beautiful picture we were able to capture. Personally I think it is one of my favorite pictures from that day.
We kept walking around the area and found a perfect location to take pictures. It had trees, grass, flowers and there were several halls from the buildings that looked like great options to take beautiful dance pictures.
I really enjoyed my time taking pictures of Kaley. She was super patient and was very easy to work with. I will definitely be working with her again in the near future to create more beautiful ballet dance pictures.
You can see the rest of her dance pictures in the gallery below.
“ Make sure to follow her on Instagram @kaleyclaire ”
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