a luxury estate, 2 ballerinas, & a gold award
AS SOON AS I BEGAN PHOTOGRAPHING ANNA & ELLA, I KNEW WE WERE GOING TO CREATE SOMETHING SPECIAL....
And I was right. With only a couple days until the deadline for the International Portrait Masters Awards, I knew I wanted to submit one of these for the Movement category. We are not supposed to submit similar images in a round, so I had to pick just one for now. A Silver Award is REALLY hard to win, that is always my goal, and the judging is very tough. There have only been a few Gold Awards given in each round, for the most extraordinary portraits out of thousands of submissions, and I never ever EVER thought that would include me...
Let's rewind to the shoot day! These two girls from the Richmond Ballet are INSANELY talented, effortlessly graceful, and a joy to work with. This was my first time photographing dancers in motion like this, something I had wanted to do for a long time. I normally shoot in my own studio, but after doing a few fashion shoots at the Estate at River Run, I was itching to create some of my own portraits there.
IT WAS VALENTINE'S DAY,
and my beautiful ballet dancers arrived (we did 3 other amazing shoots that day, but more on those later in another post!). The girls got a gorgeous soft glam look from my makeup artist Jahara, then we started with my #1 vision, the ballroom. With the gorgeous backlight of the windows, I just added one of my lights to fill in the front. We played with different movements, poses, jumps, and my assistant Sarah was fabric tossing and fan-blowing... just SO fun for all of us!
OF COURSE, I ALSO WANTED TO DO SOME DARKER & MOODIER PORTRAITS OF MY DANCERS, SO WE VENTURED TO SOME OF MY OTHER FAVORITE SPOTS IN THE ESTATE.....
& THIS ONE IS MY CHILDHOOD MUSIC BOX
coming to life...
AND HERE IS THE GOLD AWARD WINNER ...
I was on the phone with my husband, telling him I was about to get my scores after a couple months of eagerly waiting, when I refreshed the page and started screaming as I saw GOLD AWARD! Like WHAT it still doesn't feel real to me, but I guess it is. There were over 4800 images submitted, and 6 gold were awarded (!!!!), and I was SO close to winning the Movement category, placing 2nd behind one other incredible photograph. The same image also won a Silver Award from another organization, WPE International Photography Awards, and placed top 30 in the Sports category.
I'm feeling pretty excited to keep trying new things and see what happens next, so STAY TUNED! If you're a dancer and you're interested in doing something like this, don't hesitate to reach out, because I would LOVE to make that dream come true for you.
