When Amy was younger she did gymnastics (Sports Acrobatics). Training three times a week, she worked hard and loved every minute of it. At competitions I would take my camera and, because it was really difficult to get good shots of the gymnasts competing, I would stand Amy and her partner against a plain wall (if I could find one) to record the day. Consequently I have lots of great photos of gymnasts doing absolutely nothing.
So we had an idea! We know about gymnastics and dance. Why not try and record some moves in a more dynamic way? Amy had a go and I took up the camera for a change. The ceiling in the studio is low so we found it quite restricting but with some clever lighting and a fair bit of editing we got some good results.
What to do next? Well, we decided to invite some gymnasts and dancers in for a test shoot. Chris Rait came in and jumped so high we were afraid he would go through the ceiling.
Then little Courtney, Harriett and Tracey Ray and her dancers came along. The great thing about it is we could ask them to repeat a move over and over until we’d captured the right shot. And they were happy to oblige, in fact they had a great time at the studio. We then added some graphics to emphasize the movement.
Our problem now was that the studio is a little cramped for this kind of shoot so rather than bringing the dancers/gymnasts to us we have decided to take the studio to them. Tracey Ray was so impressed with her images that we have arranged to go out to one of her classes with our lights and backgrounds etc and photograph all her dancers. We’ve arranged a shoot for the 27th June and can’t wait to see how it works out. I’ll let you know how it goes but if you know any dance or gymnastics teachers in the North West who you think might be interested in something similar let us know and we’ll get in touch.
postbox studio 
