The Poetry of Motion

Kelsey – Walney Pond – Ellanor C. Lawrence Park

B Payden Photography — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 18:45:41 +0000

I shot these wonderful images of a very talented young woman from the Academy of Russian Ballet in Manassas, Va. These images were shot at Walney Pond a part of Ellanor C. Lawrence Park in Fairfax, Va. It was a beautiful warm late summer afternoon and it was a pleasure working with this talented dancer. Kelsey is a freshman in college and we wish her all the best in her future and thank her for her participation in our art project, “Poetry of Motion.”

We hope you enjoy these images as much as we enjoying sharing them with you and we hope you consider supporting this project to bring the beauty of dance to a wider audience by purchasing one of our limited edition prints at our website: www.bpaydenphotography.com/store

Dancing is the poetry of the foot.

-John Dryden

Erin – Brookside Gardens – Wheaton, MD

B Payden Photography — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 19:49:40 +0000

I really enjoyed this shoot with Erin at Brookside Gardens. We met for this shoot a few hours before sunset and captured some marvelous images that I believe capture Erin’s wonderfully positive energy as well as the beauty of dance and motion that I strive to capture in these shoots. Erin needed almost no direction in posing as she was constantly in motion, dancing and posing as we explored these beautiful gardens in the gorgeous warm evening lighting. She deserves all the credit for these wonderfully artistic images, we have plans to shoot together again in the spring of 2012 and I look forward to working with this wonderful model and dancer again!

”If we seek the real source of the dance, if we go to nature,

we find that the dance of the future is the dance of the past,

the dance of eternity,

and has been and always will be the same…

The movement of waves, of winds, of the earth

is ever the same lasting harmony.”

- Isadora Duncan

Denis – City Dock Park – Fredericksburg, VA.

B Payden Photography — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 02:19:03 +0000

For this shoot, I was contacted by a friend Denis and asked if I had considered any male dancers for my Poetry of Motion project. I had been in contact with several male dancers but conflicts of one kind or another always made the shoots impossible to schedule. Denis and I put this shoot together in Fredericksburg in 1 day and shot it the next as Denis was leaving town to dance for another ballet theater. Denis was instrumental in the posing and action shots for this shoot and I love the way we were able to capture his graceful leaps that portray perfectly the theme of this project, The Poetry of Motion.

“Dance is a little insanity that does us all a lot of good.”

-Edward Demby

Amber – Fort Hunt Park

B Payden Photography — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 19:22:25 +0000

I have posted several ads for dancers to participate in my Poetry of Motion project and Amber responded to one of these ads. She is a dance instructor for a local studio in the DC Metro area, and has quite an impressive dance resume. For her shoot I chose to shoot on location at Fort Hunt Park in Alexandria around sunset to take advantage of the gorgeous warm late summer evening light. Fort Hunt also has several preserved coastal battery’s from the early 1900′s, and we used one of these battery’s for her shoot as it is interesting architecturally and texturally as a background. This shoot was very rushed as I was pushing a deadline for another shoot and the park closing at sundown, but we still got some great shots. For Amber’s images I have included a few post processing choices that I wouldn’t normally include in a portrait sitting, but for this art project I think they work quite well.

“Movement without meaning is just exercise.”
- Marie Brooks

Caroline Grace – Nelson Park, Manassas

B Payden Photography — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 17:15:41 +0000

Following the shoot with Angelina I thought I would contact a young woman that I had worked with previously to showcase another young and talented dancer. Grace’s Mother Dana, commissioned my studio last year to shoot Grace’s Senior Ballet Solo Recital and I thought she would make a wonderful addition to my Poetry of Motion project. Grace is a beautiful young woman and a very talented and graceful dancer, she performs with the Asaph Dance Ensemble and is a student of The Northern Virginia Dance Academy. For her shoot I chose Nelson Park in Manassas, Virginia, I shot a wedding at this park 15 years ago at the beginning of my professional career, and love the gazebo and the fountain at this beautifully quaint little park right outside of Old Town. Grace was a pleasure to work with and we shot some fantastic additions to the project.

“Whosoever knoweth the power of the dance, dwelleth in God.”
- Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi

Angelina – Old Town Manassas

B Payden Photography — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 14:42:32 +0000

I was contacted in the summer of 2011 by my friend Lisa and asked if I had considered using any children in my Poetry of Motion project, and honestly I had not. Her daughter is a dancer and was interested in participating in the project, my studio has done work for Lisa and I knew her daughter and have shot her on several occasions so I thought she would make a wonderful addition to my project. I contacted Sara Gaydash and asked if she would help with the ballet posing as I am still learning names and proper technique from the dancers at The Manassas Ballet Theatre. We met in Old Town Manassas on an early summers morning to take advantage of the soft warm lighting early in the morning and with Sara’s help we gt some beautiful shots of Angelina. Lisa also took advantage of the opportunity to snap a couple of quick pics of me showing Angelina and Sara the ballet pose I wanted, and they are out there on the internet, but of course I’m not going to tell where you can find them!

This was a great shoot and I love the images of Angelina on the church steps, Thanks to Lisa for broadening my vision of this project to include children as well!

“Let us first teach little children to breathe, to vibrate, to feel, and to become one

with the general harmony and movement of nature.

Let us first produce a beautiful human being, a dancing child.”

- Isadora Duncan

Academy of Russian Ballet

B Payden Photography — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 23:54:22 +0000

I already had several location dance shoots under my belt for Poetry of Motion, for this shoot I contacted the Academy of Russian Ballet in Manassas, Virgina and the owners Jasmine and Yuri Nikitenko were most gracious with access to their studio and their dancers. I wanted to shoot a bit more formal dance portraiture versus the candid dance images from the previous shoots, so I set up my studio lighting and a white as well as Chromakey backdrop. The two dancers Larissa and Madeline were very accommodating and very easy to work with, I have at least one more shoot with an Academy of Russian Ballet dancer scheduled for the winter of 2011, check back for images of another talented young dancer.

“Ballet class is like Life Lessons 101.

You learn some of life’s most important lessons here

that you will carry with you forever.”

- Joanne H. Morscher

Jimmy and Luz – Georgetown

B Payden Photography — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 15:49:52 +0000

I had worked with Jimmy and Luz before and when I needed a duo for my Poetry of Motion project Jimmy and Luz were the first couple I thought of. They are both creative and talented dancers and this shoot stands out in my mind as one of the most enjoyable on a creative level. We started shooting on an early spring morning in Georgetown, Washington DC. We began shooting near the Swedish Embassy as the waterfront was under repair from the spring flooding along the Potomac. Following the Embassy shoot, Jimmy asked if we could do a few shots in the street, I jumped at the chance seeing as the Whitehurst Freeway is an elevated roadway over K St that made for some spectacular Black and White images. We then moved onto the busy main thoroughfare of M St where Jimmy and Luz’s street dancing gathered quite a crowd. I really enjoyed working again with this great couple and look forward to working with them again in the future.

“In conversation as in dance, each is the mirror of other.”

- Author Unknown

Nazarah Kelly – Back Bay

B Payden Photography — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 04:23:25 +0000

For my third Poetry of Motion shoot I headed to The Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge in Virginia Beach, Virginia. I was contacted by Nazarah Kelly, a belly dancer in Virginia Beach and I jumped at the chance to shoot this wonderful dancer perform this ancient art form. I met Kelly a few hours before sunset as I wanted to capture the warm soft lighting at sunset with her beautifully colorful outfits.

Kelly first outfit was a gorgeous mermaid inspired blue and purple silk costume that worked very well on the the beach and in the dunes. It was a particularly windy evening and Kelly second outfit was a flowing white costume that looked beautiful flowing around her as she danced. This second outfit had gold accents that shimmered with the setting sun and gave off a beautiful warm glow. As the sun was setting on the back bay side of the refuge I positioned Kelly in front of the sun so that her white scarves and gold accents would radiate the warm glow of the beautiful spring sunset.

“Dance is the poetic baring of the soul through motion.”

-Scott Nilsson

Sara – Manassas Battlefield

B Payden Photography — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 23:51:29 +0000

The second shoot for my Poetry of Motion project was again with Sara Gaydash of the Manassas Ballet Theatre. We shot at the Manassas National Battlefield Park and this time I concentrated on mainly black and white images. It was early spring, but unlike the cherry blossoms in Washington DC a few weeks before, the spring buds had not yet appeared at the Stone Bridge. The trees were still bare and the strak barren look of this part of the battlefield that day lent itself to black and white images.

Sara was as usual a great model and we captured some beautiful images for this project. We hope you enjoy these images as much as we enjoying sharing them with you and we hope you consider supporting this project to bring the beauty of dance to a wider audience by purchasing one of our limited edition prints here.

“Dancers are the athletes of God.”

-Albert Einstein