Our second "Flash Shoot" yesterday at The Vertitude went swimmingly! What fun.
We came up with the idea for Flash Shoots late last year, as a way to serve dancers who couldn't afford our standard half hour/hourlong packages, new polers who didn't think they had the stamina for a full appointment, and performers or instructors that need photos right away. Fortunately there are two of us in Alloy, so we can both shoot and edit simultaneously - making something like a Flash Shoot possible. One of us shoots you and the other immediately edits the images onsite, so you can leave with your photos in hand.
There are big limitations - we can't do any complex editing, so it has to be perfect in camera. The backdrop must be absolutely clean. We can't work with multiple lighting setups, and we can't mix pole with aerial since there isn't time to re-rig. We can't do as much coaching or spotting as we normally do. Tricky poses that take a long time to get into can eat up half of the 15 minute appointment. Plus, it's hard to be experimental - there just isn't time. Playing with messy things like confetti, feathers, or glitter isn't possible.
But required simplicity aside, everyone loves the instant gratification! We love sitting down with each person to see which photos are our favorites, versus which ones they choose. Sometimes those are so different! Then their friends often crowd around the computer to help choose the images - telling them to stop focusing on that one funky foot or side squish, and just look at how beautiful they are. For our standard shoots, we usually only communicate through email. So working face-to-face with people to make those choices really helps us see their perspective. As a bonus for us, when we leave, the editing is already done! We have no "homework".
Flash Shoots will definitely be a big part of our work for the upcoming year. They're fun and quick. They mean that in our standard shoots, we can be even more creative and experimental.
Throughout the winter, we've been editing photos from last year's tour shoots. Lots of black backgrounds. We love the high drama, but we're sick of black! So for this Valentine's Flash Shoot, we pulled out the color gels and dove into the rainbow of rich reds, purples, blues and yellows.
Below is a selection of our favorites.