DFW Dance and Ballet Photography featuring Marisa Ellis and Libby West.

This ballet photoshoot was absolutely amazing. I got to work with two super patient and talented ballet dancers in Dallas, Marisa Ellis, and Libby West. We met back in 2016 when I took pictures for a company they were dancing with the name Ballet North Texas. Fast forward three years and here we are working together once again. This time they were recommended to work with me for their ballet photoshoot by the also talented ballet dancer, Kaley Claire. They all dance together with Ballet Dallas.

This ballet dance photoshoot took place in December 2019. We decided to work in a photography studio since the weather in Texas is very unpredictable, and we can have all four seasons in one day. Ha! Gotta love Texas. I don’t own a studio, but I rent a beautiful studio space in Arlington, TX named YSMD, and I really enjoy working there.

Before we booked Marisa and Libby’s photoshoot, we met at a Starbucks one weekend to talk more about ideas and concepts for their ballet photoshoot. I have wanted to create images with color and chiffon veils and a few other concepts that you’ll be able to see the final images we were able to create in the gallery below.

I have so many favorite pictures from this ballet dance photoshoot. Let me start with the picture of Marisa to the right. This picture is the result of several tries. We needed to make sure her posture and expression were perfect, but we also needed to make sure that the light position was correct and that the veil would do what we wanted it to do. There were so many elements involved in this picture. From fans running to ensure that the chiffon veil would create a wave feel to 2 strobe lights with yellow gels to make the background and foreground yellow and complement the red in her leotard and veil plus two more strobe lights on her to make sure she would stand out in the picture. I’m also leaving a small behind the scenes clip below so you can see us in action.

I now want to show you one of my favorite ballet pictures of Libby. This picture is just one of the many great ballet dance pictures we were able to create. This picture was made with 3 strobe lights. I wanted to bring color to the shadows Libby was casting in this image because I positioned the light strobes to the far right corner of the frame. This picture is a combination of red, green, and blue gels on the strobe lights. There’s a clip below that shows a little bit of the process it takes to create an image like this one.
We spent 4 hours in the studio, creating all the beautiful ballet dance pictures you can see in the gallery below. I had a great time working with them. They were both very supportive of the concepts I wanted to photograph, and they were real troopers with doing the poses or reshooting the images that needed to be retaken to get it correctly.
Marissa and Libby are not only ballet dancers, but they are also ballet instructors, personal trainers, and event planners.
You can see the rest of their dance pictures in the gallery below. Also, there are a few rapid-fire questions I asked them so you can get to know a little more about them.

“ Make sure to follow them on Instagram @Marisa & @Libby ”

 

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