I had posted a casting on my facebook page to shoot a ballerina. I was very lucky to have an old school friend recommend a dancer that she knew through the dance school that her daughter goes to.
The Ballerina named Cheri (pronounced Cheree) approached me through Facebook email and we set up a shoot. I showed her some ideas and we organised a time to shoot at my house which I had recently moved in to.
She turned up looking amazing and we started with easy poses and shots. We then moved on to some more difficult poses in pointe. After that we did some beauty shots with natural window light. Let me tell you, the talent and professionalism of this 18 year old girl was just inspiring!
She was bubbly and willing to work hard to achieve her goals and dreams.

I actually had the camera in RAW, but with a monochrome setting for the JPEG preview for the whole shoot. I had never done this before, but because it was an art shoot, the goal was for mainly black and white shots, I thought it would be fitting to try this.
Let me tell you it is so much easier to review your shots this way and there are less distractions, and the exposure is what you concentrate on. This surprised me and I recommend others try it who have cameras post K5.
Many of the medium format digital backs only had black and white previews until recently.

For post processing, I used Ligtroom 5. I only made colour or monochrome adjustments for many of these and otherwise it was just a small amount of spot healing.
I used Bowens Esprit 1000's for most shots. The front light was using a general snoot of about 8" and the rim light which was used on the black tutu shots was a 22" beauty dish. Because my house is very bright, the whole thing is a massive reflector. So I used the black side of my large 2m x 1.5m rectangular reflector to block the reflections created by the opposite wall to the flash.

I hope you like the results :-)

[.a.t.]

I hope you like the results :-)

Very much.
I think you captured her beautifully.
In particular, the first is my favorite because she looks so natural and at ease.

[Kerrowdown]

The second image is stunning, I hope she likes them too.

[sbroadbentphoto]

Thank you. ..... And yes she loved them.