Posing
A dancer knows their positions better than any photographer. The job is to ask for the movement, not the shape, and to catch the top of it.
In short: A dancer knows their positions better than any photographer. The job is to ask for the movement, not the shape, and to catch the top of it.
Ask for the same jump four times and shoot the apex. Nobody gets it in one.
The only genuinely static frame; even then it lasts seconds.
Slower shutter, one sharp anchor.
Low camera, long lines, easier to time than airborne frames.
Face and posture rather than full movement — the frame a casting director looks at first.
The connective frame between performance and person.
Start with jump, repeated — the first two minutes are warm-up and the first pose should be the one that asks least of anyone. Move to extension held and turning, hair and skirt trailing once the shoulders have dropped, and keep walking off, unposed for the end, when self-consciousness has gone. Shoot each one in bursts through the movement rather than holding it: the usable frames sit between the instructions, not on them.
Two metres back with the lens zoomed rather than close and wide — distance is what keeps facial proportions natural. Camera at or slightly above eye level for portraits, at chest height for full length. Below eye level enlarges whatever is nearest the lens, which is rarely what you want in frame.
Shooting the middle of a jump rather than the apex, which produces a body in an awkward half-shape. And asking a dancer to hold a position that is designed to be passed through.
Using flash in a performance, which is distracting and usually banned. Shooting at 1/125 and wondering why everything smears. And photographing only the performance, when rehearsal is where the better pictures are.