homage to Degas

[Nomadr]

painted with light,
long exposure in total blackness ,using a small torch i painted in the light with emphasis on her ballet shoe, i wanted a soft looking light to complement, it didnt quite come off with too much movement in her hands and a shadow where i prolonged the torchlight on her shoe but hey ho, comments welcome, cheers martyn

[MiniChris]

I LOVE IT! I always like Degas and spent many an hour with pastels trying to capture his vision of light, grace and movement...and you have done a marvelous emulation of all that...and more. There is a great delicacy in the use of light and the movement is of almost no consequence to the overall impact of the shot...and I htink having viewed it several times, it almost accentuates the movement aspect. Degas would be very proud of you.

[ScoutR]

Oh my, that is beautiful. The movement does not bother me at all, in fact I like it, but the emphasis on the shoe seems just a touch too much. That's nit picky though - what a stunning shot.

Wendy

[Nomadr]

thanks for your comments, originally i thought it a good idea to have the main focus on the shoe, i also took a shot with flash which is quite popular, i was after a sort of painterly effect, i guess you can do this easily with a photoshop plug in,
i would love to try it again sometime, maybe paint a little more light onto the background ? (this was taken in a gym with a rack of medicine balls right behind the ballerina),
the model was a pro who teaches ballet, the pose was very difficult but looks simplistic,cheers martyn

[JK6065]

Oh my, that is beautiful. The movement does not bother me at all, in fact I like it, but the emphasis on the shoe seems just a touch too much. That's nit picky though - what a stunning shot.

Wendy

I totally agree with Wendy. This great, and I think this concept could deliver much more great photos.
I hope we'll see some more of this.

[Donald]

That does indeed take the breath away. A brilliant concept, composition and design and, yes, we can get into detail about the execution, but .......! Like Wendy suggests, when you've got something brilliant to start with, then we can focus our comments on the nuances and subtleties and debate whether a bit more light here, slightly less movement on the hands there, would make a difference. The joy is being able to have such an excellent starting point for such a discussion.

[Katy Noelle]

This really is super. Very lovely!

[Nomadr]

wow, thanks for the kind feedback,i always try and do experiments if i have a hired dancer,sometimes they work, most times they dont, i will try some more in the near future with a new dancer i have lined up,
heres a stretched canvas B&W version taken with flash at a local exhibition, i rotated it to improve symmetry,cheers martyn

[tihsgod]

it really a great shot.. interesting how with painting like this you can get two slightly different images of the say the hand... its not just a blurred single image... really interesting concept to follow up with...

[Nomadr]

thanks Neil, another idea you have given me is to paint the model then paint her reflection in a slightly different pose, i just hope i can black out this dance studio, cheers martyn

[tihsgod]

Martyn, yes i was thinking similarly, that could really work very nicely if it is done carefully...

Also maybe if she moves out of the way you can paint the floor on its own then insert that as a layer and blend so that you can take out some of those shadows / or just reduce their intensity... probably just an underexposed flash exposure?