[LargeFormat] Critique

[rstein]

Dear Verna,

     Well, Thank Goodness. Someone who knows whereof  I speak, belly
dancing-wise. And a practitioner too.

     Well, Ms. V., we'll have to educate the masses. You dance, I'll
photograph, and with a bit of luck the message will spread faster than our
waistlines.

    The technical aspects of the dance are best learned by going to classes.
The aspiring dancer or photographer must realise that there are many -
MANY - styles of ME dance. All the way from Turkish to Egyptian to tribal to
Hollywood cabaret to techno-latino-polynesian fusion with a small side
salad. There is even an English public school style of belly dance where the
costumes feature heavy tweeds and sensible shoes and the dance movements are
extremely restrained.

    Different schools of dance have different things to teach, but there are
constants in the business:

1.     The lessons will be at inconvenient times.
2.     The studio will be too cold.
3.     The studio will be too hot.
4.     The teacher will have a running feud with the teacher of another
school in town.
5.    The costume and accessories for sale at the studio or at the belly
dance bazaars will be, price-for-weight, more expensive than refined
platinum.
6.    The teacher can wear that costume, you cannot. Never mind her trying
to sell it to you, you will not look the same. Bits will stick out. Not the
bits you nominate.

    Please note that the rivallries of the art are generally not between
different styles or schools - they are between different teachers or
dancers. Many of the feuds do not even have a basis in art - they are
personal. The phrase " claw your eyes out " is a good one to remember and if
you are to be friends with several of these ladies it is best to remember to
whom you speak and of whom you speak. When in doubt, run.

    Photographing the dance is difficult in actual show performance.
Granted, it is the time when most dancers give of their best as far as
actual emotion - the audience providing a key feedback - but the settings ar
e generally awful and the camera position that captures the best view will
block that view from the audience.

    I have found the best compromise for large or medium format work is to
bring the dancer into the studio - provide a scooped backdrop and some props
( Blessings on the firm that makes fake palm trees ) and light it well. The
lighting can be classic 3/4 strong and fill or 1/2 and 1/2 umbrellas, but I
particularly like a rim light or hatchet light with gels on the side spots.
This is particularly effective for blondes and anyone wearing a sparlker of
a cabaret costume.

    My monoblocks shoot at 1/800 of a sec so when i studio shoot i leave the
camera set on 1/250 anyway. I have enough electricity there to go to f.16-22
so minor variations in position for the dancer are not important.

     The best way I have found of getting some of the performance dynamics
in the studio are to get the ladies to bring in 2 friends and to bring in
their own perfomance tapes or CD's. I encourage them to walk through their
routine and let me see where the best highpoints are and then actually give
their show performance for us. We clap, cheer, and ullulate to encourage the
performance and it works.

    More later, as I am now required to go and gut and hang the Christmas
dinner, but I will leave the gentlemen of the list with one final
admonishment. Look and see what is going on with belly dancing - don't just
imagine. I have had a number of people look at the prints taken of dancers
in full cabaret costume and comment " Look at the naked girls ". The naked
girls are in truth wearing costumes that weigh 10 Kilos and take 6 months of
patient sewing - and are masterpieces of dynamic engineering.

     Uncle Dick