Nutcracker Ballet No.2 Photo

Photographer’s Note

This ballet photograph is the second in my "Nutcracker Ballet" series. The City of Lakewood, Colorado hired me to photograph Lakewood's excellent ballet company, The David Taylor Dance Theater's production of Tchaikovsky's fabulous "Nutcracker Ballet". Tchaikovsky was not only a genius as a composer, he had an amazing imagination as well. I tried as carefully as I could to sharpen, but not over-sharpen this image for resized web posting. The metadata posted on the camera info is incorrect, I took this photo last December. I forgot to change the time and date. This photo was taken during a live performance.

John Munro brought up a good point about the overexposed highlights. This was a high contrast shot to begin with and I usually increase the contrast to exaggerate the highlights and shadows on the compressed and resized TE postings. The original image has much better shadow and highlight detail but when I resized the photo for web posting, it looked a little flat.

japiey, euryan, syd1946, feather, jwmunro, Photo65Net, JorgeCK, enedimd, Didi, dareco has marked this note useful

Critiques | Translate

BLO (180) 2007-12-18 21:48

this very well captured picture...piece of art i would say....the best picture from nutcracker what i ever seen. The city of Lakewood did the right choice of photographer

japiey (9493) 2007-12-19 0:43

Dear Stan,

Like the blooming petals of a flower she dances...
The master holds the world in his hands.... with a delicate touch..
Colours spread fragrance and passion, love...
Romantic click !!

GORGEOUS ....

Namasthe:)

jean paul

euryan (8349) 2007-12-19 0:54

I love it. The lighting on the dancers is captured so well. The moment of capture is perfect too. The mostly black background is gorgeous. Any dancer would want this photo as poster for their room. Excellent work Stan.

syd1946 (17913) 2007-12-19 1:27

Hello Stan,
So wonderful cuptured of the moment.The light on the dancers are very nice contrasting the dark part.Most of all I find very succefull the form of the image!

Thomas

mesutilgim (36858) 2007-12-19 2:37

Hello dear Stan,
Great capture ! Very nice light management, great warm colors. A real masterpiece. Perfect sharpness under uneasy light conditions.
TFS and best regards
MESUT ILGIM

ayansadhu (1499) 2007-12-19 6:47

Who speaks for whom?!
Is it your photos or your profile....
I think the former one does it strongly for you..
I like this composition with superb lighting and sharpness...

feather (49862) 2007-12-19 6:48

Another wonderful shot of the ballet Stan. You chose another good moment to shoot with the pose perfect. The black background really makes the dancers stand out.
Kath

[2]

jwmunro (6585) 2007-12-19 8:13

Hello Stan -

Stunning!! The no-detail black really makes the performers stand tall in this image. The lighting though looks to be a bit strong and has blown out some details on their costumes but then helps separate the subjects from the BG. I am not criticizing this but just pointing out how OE sometimes can work for you, I guess you would call this a high-key color image. That little touch of reflection from the stage floor helps keep the performers grounded and does not make them look like they are floating in the black. Stunning!!!!!

Thank you for sharing.

John

Photo65Net (43096) 2007-12-19 10:32

Stan,
Wow, great exposure in this image !
Contrasts are so beautiful, and so are colors, very nice job.
Regards,
JB.

baba_flies (8001) 2007-12-19 12:02

No wonder they hire you, Stan, this is outstanding work of yours. I love the very dark background giving the dancers the main focus - as they deserve it. You got them just perfect, so elegant everything, and I hope they saw your photo work meanwhile. Have a good day, Barbara.

enedimd (1528) 2008-01-14 12:24

Hi Stan,
Again, wonderful shot from Nutcraker Ballet. Colors, timing, light and composition are very well.
Emir Nedim

Didi (36158) 2008-01-18 11:31

Hi Stan
Very intersting picture, well done for the side lights and the quality of lights management; it's magic !
Cheers.

dareco (17104) 2008-04-13 0:23

Another beauty!! I love the lighting and colors. A really great pose!!! TFS