Degas Dancer

Hi Taya,

Thanks for your suggestions. I tried to add space on the bottom but there were not enough pixels for Photoshop to add it intelligently in the Fill dialogue. Trying to do it manually with the Clone tool would have been difficult with the wrinkles in the fabric she is sitting on. The back story to this is I belong to a MeetUp Group in Connecticut (we are there in summer and in Florida in winter) that does studio photography. The leader of the group has a small studio in his basement. It is not very wide and so there may not have been enough room to move her away from the fabric on the left. I don't recall. I don't usually do studio photography so this was the first time I have joined this group although I've been a member for some years just in case they were doing something of interest. In this case, I was intrigued by the theme which was ballet dancers as painted by Degas. I have always loved Impressionist painting. So I attended for the first time. It was a pretty big group and we took turns with the model. They were very nice and all serious about their work, and I would join them again if I liked the theme. The leader of the group studied ballet photography at Jacobs Pillow Dance Theatre in the Berkshires. He has a certificate from the classes he attended with some well known dance photographer. So a lot of his sessions involve motion. It is not an inexpensive session, however, as he charges $40 for the studio and the model gets $100 from each participant and $120 if you want her to sign a model release, which I always would want. I belong to two other MeetUp Groups in Connecticut. One does night photography and some landscape and the other is run by a local camera store which offers lectures on various topics and photo walks. I wish there were some similar groups in Florida. The only one near me did some field trips but I dropped out as they were not very interesting. There also is a local camera club but again their field trips have been repetitive over the years.

Fran

I completely understand. You made the most of the theme, location, and lighting, which is more than good enough. I hope that you get to join more photography groups like this in Florida and that they're more interesting for you. In the meantime, I hope you find a lot of inspiration here! :)