Ella-Rose Jones at Brockhampton Estate

I’m really enjoying working with Ella.

Dance photography is so different from sport and its good for me to keep improving.

Improving on my own terms though which means incorporating dance photography into my style. The way Ella and I shoot in terms of location, style, framing is exactly the same way I shoot portraits but just with dance added in.

One of the things I most enjoyed about this shoot (our second shoot) was talking to Ella about dance and the way we both feel is best to capture it. We talked about the fact that dance is obviously all about movement and that photography is about freezing moment. Ella danced continually for 30 seconds quite a few times and for me so it is challenging to covey the beauty of Ella’s continuous movement in one frame.

Its very different from sport where you can really convey a great deal of what is going on in one shot (a big tackle or a celebration). In my opinion dance is probably most comparable to tennis photography where the focus in on both capturing the action but also working with the action to create beautiful shapes to show the player, or in this case dancer, at their very best.

Once again Ella produced some amazing dance moves – static posed shots and action shots. I am not great at directing dance moves and poses. It generally involves either Ella producing a fantastic move or me waving my arms/legs around saying something a bit like this please! Ella interprets my awful movements and produces something beautiful.

Its hugely fun. Ella is incredibly talented and so good to collaborate with. The subject/model being aware of what the photographer is aiming for is something I really value and something Ella is great at. The Brockhampton estate was a great backdrop and we had a great shoot and it didn’t rain!