Beyond polished performances: photographing the “quieter, unguarded” moments of ballet dancing
Interval, a series by Idaho-based photographer Weston McGhee, explores ballet dancing in spontaneous settings, with one of the images recently chosen by VSCO to feature on a billboard
Beyond the structured performances of ballet, photographer Weston McGhee seeks to capture the spontaneous beauty and emotion of the art form. In his ongoing photo series, Interval, he showcases dancers in less conventional settings, such as a garage in Boise, Idaho. Rather than follow a choreographed routine, Weston encouraged the dancer, Cydney, to express herself freely, leading to a collaborative and unguarded moment.
The garage setting, with its direct sunlight entering through a roof opening, provided an ideal backdrop for Weston to photograph Cydney's freestyle movements. Using his recently acquired Fujifilm X100VI, Weston captured the image from a distance to avoid interrupting the dancer's motion. The image, now featured on a billboard in his home state, is part of VSCO's "The Fifty" project, which highlights the work of practicing photographers across the US.
Weston believes this series reflects a delicate balance between posed portraiture and the more intimate, unguarded moments that arise from trust and shared time between the dancer and the photographer.
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