Yesterday, I collaborated with my good friend Anisha, instagram.com/anishaspice, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music to create these color portraits of dancers in the David Dorfman Dance Company. Here are some portraits and what I learned:
Use a backdrop
A few artists I look up to, namingly Paul Octavious, have done gel portraits before and the thing I missed here was an opportunity to use a dark backdrop to give the portraits a sense of being suspended in space. The portrait below is a great example, the color cast on his face is strong but the overwhelming purple in the background distracts from an otherwise stunning portrait.
Use flags and V-flats to cut the light.
Subtlety is the friend of a portrait artist, and next time I do this I will do a better job of using light more directionally and not letting it just flood over the subjects face. if you notice, the small portions of the subject's face that reveals their skin tone gives a nice feeling of depth to the image.
Employ more motion
Now I was hindered a bit by the amount of space we had available to us, but lighting the scenario better would have allowed me to capture a larger range of motion and potentially even do multiple exposures to highlight the complexity of their movement and artistry as performers.
The shooting was a great exercise and the subjects were fantastic. Stay tuned for next time I try gel portraiture. Huge thank you to Anisha for the BTS imagery.
