Kept Light Photography

Photography and Writing by A. Cemal Ekin

Ballerina in Providence

by

Eugenia Zinovieva, Providence

I had a photo shoot with one of the dancers of the Festival Ballet Providence, Eugenia Zinovieva. This was an extension of an idea I had for quite a while where I wanted to photograph the dancer in a different environment than the stage or studio. Eugenia was interested in the idea and approached me to arrange a shoot. I thought it would be interesting to use downtown Providence as the backdrop and use one of the public art pieces that I call the “Steel Donut”.  To contrast her soft, flexible, organic body against the hard, edgy, inorganic sculpture and use the strong lines of the city as accents where appropriate.

Ballerina In Providence

I wanted to shoot near the sunset and Eugenia and I scouted the area a week before the shoot. She liked the idea and we started shooting close to 7 PM on August 19, 2013 and continued until a little after 8 PM. Eugenia struck some poses, she accommodated my request for special poses where I wanted to create highly angular body shapes, you will see them in the collection. She has a signature pose where she pulls one of her legs from behind over her head, en pointe on the other foot. Towards the end, we worked to get that pose in and you will see how she moves towards that and then the complete pose. Early on she struck that pose inside the steel donut, mimicking the angular segments of the sculpture with her knee and elbow.

Meet Eugenia Zinovieva

Eugenia was born in Moscow, Russia, and moved to the US at an early age. She began her training at the Boston Ballet School, where she studied for eight years. Her education was completed at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts under the direction of Ethan Stiefel. She then spent a year training semi-privately with Sara Knight before coming to Festival Ballet Providence in 2012. In her first year at FBP, Eugenia had the honor of dancing roles such as the Fairy of Generosity in The Sleeping Beauty and the Flames of Paris pas de deux, in addition to many other classical and contemporary works. She has attended summer programs at Boston Ballet, the Harid Conservatory, and the Academie de Danse Princesse Grace in Monaco.

As I processed the photographs I shared them with Eugenia and she chose a collection of her favorites. I finalized editing those and shared them with her. You may see some on facebook as she decides to share them there. To that collection, I added a few that were not appealing to her from a dance point but attractive to me from a photographic perspective and decided to process them further to augment the incongruity of seeing a ballerina on the streets of Providence. The collection you will see here are processed to resemble the cross-processed photographs of the film days where, by accident or deliberate intention, photographers developed a type of film in developers meant for a different type. Processing color negative film in a slide film developer or Kodachrome in Ectachrome baths would produce unexpected results where colors would somewhat shift and look edgy. The wrong appearance of the colors in this collection is intentional and the result of the special processing I applied to them for this result.

Before viewing the photographs, take a look at the short bio of Eugenia, a very good dancer and equally good photography model willing to try different things. Thank you, Eugenia, for a great photo shoot.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Beautiful! Very nice artist contrast. Love some of the poses in conjunction with the hard lines.
    -Sal-

  2. Balerinimizi de, fotoğrafçımızın çektiği resimleri de çok beğendim. Beni en çok 4, 6, 7, 12, 13, 17 ve 19 numaralı resimler etkiledi. Eline sağlık Cemal Hoca!

  3. Beautiful photographs Cemal. I do like the processing. I have to say, photo #12 ( bent over backwards on the stairs) stood out for me, but they are all exceptional.

    • Thank you all for your good words. Steve, she was not sure about that one but I insisted and she obliged. Different takes, she was thinking from “dance” viewpoint and I was from “photography.” It may not be a good “dance” photograph, but it is a good “photograph” especially with that duck entering the picture.

  4. A very good blend of the two arts, Dance & Photography. My favorite is the last, (save the best for last). The lighting is very nice too. Did you use the softbox on flash?

    • Thanks Mike. Yes we used a small softbox in addition to the natural lighting. That’s the reason for blurry and ghost images in some.

      Cemal