Embodied Photography: Sensing through the lens

This is a workshop for dancers who have looked at a camera and thought, “What do all of these acronyms mean and what do all the buttons do?” Believe me, I’ve asked myself these questions a million times over the years. What I’ve learned is that these questions don’t have to stand in the way of creativity in motion. If you know your body (and we all know you do), you’re ready to start to explore your camera as an extension of it and document dance through still images.

Embodied Photography, much like improvisation, asks you to hold space for technique, artistry, and moment-to-moment problem solving, all at once. During the course of this workshop, participants will deepen their understanding of composition, exposure, DSLR camera settings, and editing practices while building in their bodies a ritual of grounding and centering while photographing. This, long term, will allow participants to capture dancing images in a way that flows with the work they are documenting. Participants of all photographic knowledge levels are invited. Plan to bring your camera or photo capturing devices (including your phone!), your body, your movement rituals, and your sense of improvisation and play!

Jul 7: Image Composition
This class will focus on the elements of photographic composition. We will learn a few styles of composition historically used in photography and practice how these types of composition can be used to generate images of moving bodies. Participants will be asked to photograph with a camera, phone, or other device they wish to bring and be photographed while improvising. This class will be open to anyone interested in participating.

Jul 9: How do you make the camera do that?
In this class we will look at the elements of Exposure, camera settings, and camera functions and how they affect the compositions we learned to create. Participants will have the opportunity to work with their own DSLR camera if they have one, or one that will be provided by Rachel for the day as well as phones or other image creating devices. We will practice both improvising and photographing a body in motion under different lighting constraints. This class will be open to anyone interested in participating.

Jul 10: Editing
This seminar will focus on the basics of editing in Adobe Lightroom, a small section on relevant Photoshop functions, and free editing platforms. We will look at each other’s images and discuss strengths and photographic goals moving forward. This class will be open to anyone interested in participating.

Individual Mentoring Sessions
Rachel will join 4-6 mentees to photograph MELT movement classes where permission has been granted. Participants will spend 15 minutes observing Rachel photographing and spend 15 minutes photographing as well. Bringing your own DSLR camera is encouraged, but participants are welcome to use equipment provided by Rachel, if needed. After photographing, we will spend some time debriefing on the experience and building goals based on each mentee. These sessions are reserved for 4-6 full-term mentees.

What to expect:
Attendees can expect to move, capture, and be captured. We will be improvising (but I certainly don’t mind if you bring that phrase you’ve been working on to get some eyes on it. Especially if improvising is not your thing), photographing, sharing, and connecting with our fellow attendees. We’ll talk a bit of shop about composition and how cameras work, but primarily we will learn by doing.

For workshop-related questions, please email melt@movementresearch.org.