Lisa Williams - Polevocative

A good friend of mine presented an opportunity to me... She mentioned her Pole Dance instructor had an event coming up and wanted a Photographer to cover the event and asked if I was interested.

Bit of a silly question I thought lol...

At the event, titled "An Evocative Affair", I of course met Lisa and her girls.

Lisa is the instructor, whom has also competed around the UK, and is simply amazing at what she does. It boggles the mind everytime I had seen her climb up a pole with ease... Admittedly, I even gave it a quick go and boy was it hard! I can actually do a chin-up, lift my own weight, and I'm not exactly completely outta shape, but I couldn't even get up that pole even a little bit! The only time I managed to get off the floor and on that pole I had to cheat it and jump! Doesn't really count...

Me and Lisa discussed the idea of a Portrait shoot, and although I am comfortable with Portraiture, I haven't done properly setup shoots yet, such as Studio or with Off-Camera Lighting.

My style is very much laid back, I like to set the subject in a scenario, and catch them in candid moments. What me and Lisa had in mind was a bit more controlled and focused on a theme.

She wanted images which would be displayed around her new Studio which has just opened in Croydon, and she was specific in that she wanted them Black and White. I'm not the most knowledgeable person with Pole Dance, so I did my research and looked up some images, and I had seen many pictures out there displayed where the Dancer is performing in front of a crowd, or I had seen setup shots but they were done with lighting which flattened everything out and you couldn't appreciate the lines of the poses that the dancers were doing.

So I envisioned a really dark theme... and I wanted to incorporate that idea and feeling of Lisa being on stage performing... So I set up 2 Flashes, and Zoomed them out to their maximum Zoom to give it as much directional light as possible, set them behind her and got her to pose, and when the flashes triggered they would create a Rim light around her...

I could Photoshop this image and copy the Flash Lights and past them in various parts of the image, however I feel that's just cheating... the important factor of this image is the fact that you have a nice light on the edges of Lisa's profile of her face and body, and a hint of the pole in the middle....

This image did require a fair bit of post-processing as I was using the Nikon CLS System to trigger the Flashes, and that provided a touch of fill light from the front, which I did not want. Therefore I had to lower the exposure with an adjustment brush to bring down the blacks....

Times like that, I see the benefits of the Radio Triggers such as Pocket Wizards...

After we worked on the Silohuette Stage shot style stuff, I wanted to have a proper Portrait of Lisa doing her thing. I had seen Portraits of Pole Dancers in general before, and their lighting was fairly bright, which did light up the image very well and was properly exposed, however, wherever possible I try to give my images some depth.

I like the feeling that whoever see's the image, will feel like they are there. The best way to make them feel as if they were there is to show dimension and layers. The light setup I had in mind for her poses were to have the lights on either side of her.

I had a SB900 shot into a 43" Westcott Umbrella on the left hand side, and a SB700 on the right hand side with the same Westcott Umbrella...

Both were set to 1/32 Power, which in hindsight, I probably should've nudged the SB700 to 1/16 and set it a touch further back as both Flash Guns have a different maximum power output, therefore you do lose a touch of light on the right side against the left, but not an entire stops worth of light, therefore nudging back the Umbrella could've been a slight fine tune once I gave it 1stop more light. I still feel this is a very strong image.

In terms of Lisa's pose, it's stunning... Incase you hadn't noticed, "No hands!" lol... That's her legs and hips... Madness! I'm in pain just looking at this...

But I love how Lisa fell into this pose and let her hands rest delicately, yet her legs gives this image a sense of power and strength...

In terms of lighting, with it being lit from either side, you gain a shadow down the middle of legs etc... This gives the image a bit more dimension as you can see the curves of her body.

There were a few more shots from this shoot, various style were attempted, but I def feel these two were the strongest for me.

I should actually be packing for holiday as I am now off for 10days! But my favourite pictures from this shoot have been edited and sent to Lisa, and will be uploading some to my Facebook Page.

When I return, I'll go through the rest and may upload more...

You'll find a few more images on my facebook page...

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.333027623413917.68032.204420089608005&type=3
Pole Dance is an alternative way of keeping fit, and I know first hand how flippin' hard it is! Don't believe me, next time you walk past a lamp post, try climb up it!

But if anyone wants to give it a go, check out Lisa's Website at http://www.polevocative.org/.

She has recently opened a new studio in Croydon, and if you attend her class, you should also be able to see some images of mine on a Canvass ;)

I was pretty amped about this shoot, was happy that I got some good shots out of it, and wanted to share and write about it a bit, so thought I'd quickly BLOG it before flying out.

Happy Easter people! When I return I'll have some new Holiday Snaps to upload!

www.leophoto.co.uk
www.facebook.com/leophoto.co.uk
@LeoHoangPhoto
www.polevocative.org