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Better Than a Leap of Faith: Lois Greenfield Shares Her Tips for Capturing Dancers in Flight

Chris Gampat
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01/24/2016
2 Mins read
Daniel Ezralow and Ashley Roland

Daniel Ezralow and Ashley Roland

Recognizing the challenges of dance photography is something American photographer Lois Greenfield appreciates perhaps more than anyone. For 40 years, has been known for her signature gravity-defying images of dancers in flight. One of the biggest challenges is to capture the ‘perfect’ moment. From her years of experience, Greenfield shares with you 3 tips to help you develop your own decisive moment in dance photography. She also holds 2 day dance photography workshops in her NYC based studio, the next one being March 19&20, 2016. Click here for more details!

Lois’ Gear:

Broncolor Power Packs

Broncolor Pulso Heads

Leaf Digital Back

Hasselblad 500 series Manual Camera Body

Catching the right moment

One of the mistakes photographers make is that they to see the peak of the action through the viewfinder. Looking through the viewfinder to determine the moment you want to shoot will cause you to miss the shot, because by the time you see the moment and decide to shoot it, the moment will be gone!

No matter how responsive the shutter on your camera is, you still have to take the picture a split second before the peak of the action. So it’s best to put your camera on a tripod, and concentrate on what the dancers are doing.

Learn to anticipate the moment

Many photographers switch their cameras to ‘burst’ mode, in the hopes that out of a 10-15 image sequence there will be a miracle moment. But more often then not it doesn’t work like that, and the photographer is left with no picture he really likes.  I recommend shooting one frame at a time, engaging with the action in front of the camera, rather than depending on an automated machine to take the pictures. You can ask the dancers to repeat their movement phrase a few times. This allows you to practice anticipating the moment you wish to capture, as well as practice your timing.

"Bewildered", Adryan Moorefield, Courtney Robinson, Janine Beckles, PHILADANCO, Rosita Adamo, Tommie-Waheed Evans, Victor Lewis Jr.
“Bewildered”, Adryan Moorefield, Courtney Robinson, Janine Beckles, PHILADANCO, Rosita Adamo, Tommie-Waheed Evans, Victor Lewis Jr.

How to get a good group shot

If you are shooting more than one dancer, timing can become complicated. Asking the dancers to count, or having someone external to count for them helps ensure everyone is moving at the same time. A good way to approach a group shot is to first photograph each dancer in their respective positions separately, so you get a sense of the position you want to capture, and then ask them to do the jumps together.

camera dancers hasselblad lighting Lois Greenfield
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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.