Ballet Photography Sydney

These photography sessions are perfect for:

• dancers who want proper portraits in the tutu they’ve worked all year for

• marking an exam year, a first concert or a first pair of pointe shoes

• kids who’ve been dancing since they were three and are suddenly not little any more

• jumps and leaps photographed properly, frozen mid air, which is almost impossible to get at a concert

• dancers building images for auditions, dance school applications or social media

• available from around three years old through to teenagers and adults

Cost:
$199 per dancer
Location:
über photography studio
768 Pacific Highway, Gordon
What’s included:
• 45-minute Studio Session
• two looks, hair down and hair up
• jumps and leaps shot in studio
• a purchasing session the same day as your session to help you with selecting your images
• 2 Retouched High-Resolution Files
• additional photos are $75 each
What to bring:
• your own ballet gear, including a tutu if she has one
• ballet shoes, pointe shoes, character shoes and a warm up wrap
• please arrive with her hair down and brushed out, not already in a bun

To book your session, select a time from the calendar below.

Ballet Photography in Sydney

She’s been going to ballet every Saturday morning since she was three. You’ve sat through the concerts, sewn the ribbons, paid for the shoes she grew out of in a term. And the only photos you have are from row H on your phone, blurry, too far away, with somebody’s head in the corner.

This is the session that fixes that.

A ballet photography session is 45 minutes in my studio at Gordon, photographing your dancer properly. Not a concert snap. Real portraits, lit properly, where you can see her face and her line and the shape of her hands.

I photograph children every single day, and I’ve worked with dancers from tiny pre-schoolers in their first leotard through to teenagers who’ve been dancing for a decade. I know how to direct a position without making it look stiff, and I know when a three year old has had enough.

Bring your own ballet gear

This is your dancer’s session, so it’s her gear.

There’s a reason I ask for her own things rather than supplying costumes. The tutu she wore for her first concert means something. In ten years that’s the photo she’ll want, not one of her in a costume from a studio wardrobe.

We work through two looks. The first is whatever she likes wearing, hair down. The second is the tutu, hair up. If she’d rather stay in the same outfit for both, that’s completely fine, because the hair change alone gives us two very different sets of images.

If she has a favourite colour or there’s a particular look you’ve got in your head, bring photos of it. I’d rather know before we start.

Hair down first, then up

This is the bit most people don’t think about.

Come with her hair down and brushed out, not already in a bun.

Hair down gives us the soft, arty ballet images. Loose hair, simple light, a lot of movement and feeling in them. They’re the ones that end up framed on a wall, because they look like art rather than a dance photo.

Then we put it up into a bun, change into the tutu and shoot the classic ballet portraits. Clean lines, proper positions, the images that look like she’s about to walk on stage. These are the ones for grandparents, for her room, and for anything she needs to send to a dance school.

Two completely different looks out of one session. That’s why the hair matters.

Jumps and leaps

Yes, we do the jumps.

Grand jeté, sauté, whatever she’s been working on. There’s room in the studio for a proper run up and the lighting freezes her mid air, so you get the shape of the jump rather than a blur.

This is the shot you can’t get at a concert. You’re too far back, the theatre is too dark and it’s over before you’ve got your phone up. In here I can ask her to do it again, and again, until we’ve got the one where her legs are exactly where she wants them.

Most dancers love this part of the session. It’s the bit where they stop feeling photographed and start just dancing.

Ballet portraits on Sydney’s North Shore

The studio is at Gordon, five minutes from the station with council parking right outside. It’s 175 square metres with three big arch windows, so there’s room to move and beautiful light to work with.

That matters more than it sounds. Most ballet portraits get shot either at the dance school after class, when everyone is tired and the light is fluorescent, or in a small studio where there’s no space to actually hold a position, let alone jump.

I shoot on clean, simple backdrops. Nothing competing with your dancer, so the tutu and the line of her body are the whole image.

What to expect

Your session runs for 45 minutes. I’ll greet you at the door, show you the dressing room and talk through what we’re doing before I pick up a camera. Nobody gets pushed straight in front of a light.

We start with hair down for the soft images, then change the hair, move into the tutu and work through the classic ballet portraits. Somewhere in there we’ll do the jumps, usually once she’s warmed up and stopped being shy.

I’ll direct the positions. She doesn’t need to know what to do and you don’t need to coach her from the sidelines. If she’s little, we’ll keep it playful and short. If she’s a teenager who knows exactly what her good side is, we’ll use that.

After your session, go and grab a coffee for about 15 minutes, then come back and choose your final images. Two retouched high-resolution files are included and additional images are available if you want more. Your digital files come through within 48 hours.

Ballet photos for exams, concerts and auditions

If there’s a date attached to this, tell me when you book.

Exam years and end of year concerts are the two most common reasons people book a ballet session, and both of them come with a deadline. Same for dance school applications and audition submissions, where you need clean images by a certain date.

I’ll work backwards from your deadline so the files are in your hands in time. Book early in term rather than the week of the concert, because that’s when every dance mum in Sydney has the same idea.