Readers’ wildlife photos

Well, “wildlife” today means “H. sapiens engaged in ritual movements.” Yes, Doug Hayes of Richmond, Virginia sends us more dance photos. His captions are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

I have been photographing my friend Starrene Foster’s dance company, Starr Foster Dance, since she founded it over 20 years ago. The company has performed throughout Virginia and at venues and festivals around the country. The company is currently in rehearsal for a busy fall/winter schedule of performances. First up, on September 5th, Starr Foster Dance will perform at Richmond’s Dogwood Dell dancing to live music by the band Rattlemouth. On September 7th they will perform at Gallery 5 in downtown Richmond appearing with Fuse Ensemble as they present a work for vocalists, dancers and audio that explores the concept of mimetic desire – the work of French philosopher Rene Girard. For more information, visit http://www.starrfosterdance.org

The band Rattlemouth can be found here; the Fuse Ensemble here, Gallery 5 here, and Firehouse Theater here.

These photos are for publicity and social media for the company’s upcoming season. The Starr Foster Dance core lineup (l to r): Sarah Carrington, Madison Ernstes, Molly Huey, Roya Baker-Vahdani, Shannon Comerford:

From an earlier photoshoot. Fran Beaumont (center) had to leave the group after many years due to her new job’s schedule making it difficult to attend rehearsals and performances:

Shannon Comerford’s leap. Starr asked each dancer to do an eccentric, twisting jump:

Molly Huey’s take on the eccentric leap:

This is a seven-frame sequence of the jump from which the previous photo was taken. The camera was set in high-speed burst mode with a shutter speed of 1/320th of a second and the flash units were set to “freeze” with a flash duration of 1/10,000th of a second. The flash units are able to recycle and fire fast enough to keep up with the camera shutter. Until recently, cameras were only able to synch at 1/60th of a second and flash units required a full second or more to recycle:

Sarah Carrington:

Madison Ernstes:

Sarah Carrington and Roya Baker-Vahdani:

Shannon Comerford, Madison Ernstes, Molly Huey:

Publicity photos for the dance, Mercy. From the early photoshoot when Fran Beaumont was still with the group. Costumes by Starr Foster. Mercy will premiere December 4th – 7th at the Firehouse Theater:

Current company lineup posing for Mercy. The final piece will utilize the company plus several guest dancers yet to be cast:

Another photo from the Mercy photoshoot:

Camera info:  Sony A1 II camera body, Sony G-Master 24-70 zoom lens, 3 Westcott FJ-400 monolights (wireless, self-contained battery powered), Westcott FJ-X3S radio controller for Sony cameras capable of controlling 200 units at once. Each monolight was assigned a separate channel for individually adjustable light output. Adobe Photoshop and Topaz Photo AI software.