Education/Inspiration
Bobbie Goodrich's Fine-Art Dance Imagery
By Lynne Eodice
Oct 1, 2006

All images © Bobbie Goodrich

Butterfly Lovers, National Ballet of China

Bobbie Goodrich is a fine-art photographer who produces beautiful, painterly images of horses and the west, which she exhibits at galleries in Colorado and Arizona (she was also our Photos to Inspire subject in January 2006). Recently she’s added dance images to her repertoire. “It all began in Bolivia, and oddly enough, I didn’t even have a camera with me when I saw these dancers,” she explains. She was on a trip photographing indigenous cultures about five years ago, and was in a restaurant with a small group of photographers when suddenly some dancers came on stage. “Someone had a small, disposable camera with them and I got close to the stage to photograph this indigenous dance. I was mesmerized; it was the highlight of the trip,” she says.

After Goodrich returned home she looked at the negatives, and thought initially that there was nothing remarkable about them. “But something kept nagging at me. I took them back to the lab and had them made into slides, scanned them and got them into the computer. Then I saw some very interesting color and movement.” Goodrich began working on these images “just for the fun of it,” and went to the library to do research on the dance performance she had photographed, which was a type of Bolivian folk dance that represents the stages of romance a couple experiences. “The more I learned about these dances from different countries and how they represent the cultures, the more interested I got,” she explains. “I worked up these images of Bolivian dances and essentially turned them into paintings.”

Turning Photos into Fine Art
Thereafter, when she traveled to various countries to photograph their culture, she has scheduled time to photograph the native dance. “It started in Bolivia, and then I went to Peru. When I was in Africa and visiting the tribes, I photographed the Maasai, who dance every day,” she says. Her background is in painting, which greatly influences her photography. “When I do my western images, it’s just the beginning for me,” notes Goodrich. “My photographs are just starting points. When I process them in Adobe Photoshop CS2 or whatever I’m using, I view them as paintings.” In addition to working digitally, she also turns many of these images into oil paintings on canvas.

Goodrich also studied dance throughout grade school and high school, and attended Bellebender and Allegro Dance Studios in Chicago. “I studied classical ballet, modern interpretive dance and character dance. So I think it was a natural thing once I stopped dancing and got involved in the visual arts—painting and photography—my interest was reawakened in dance and it just took another form. I understand movement from having performed it.”

Reflections, Ballet de Monterrey

Capturing Motion & Spirit
“When I photograph dancers, I’m looking for movement,” she remarks. “So I document it with the camera.” She does this by experimenting with slow shutter speeds and sets her camera on shutter priority. When she’s not concentrating on slow shutter speeds, “I open up my aperture. Most of my lenses are f/2.8, and I use this setting when I’m more concerned with light,” she observes. “It depends on who I’m photographing, the performance, choreography, and whether or not it’s beautifully lit. If everything falls into place, then I have an easy task at hand.” Non-professional performances are a different matter, because of the different elements she has to deal with. Lenses also play an important role, she adds. “I photographed the International Dance Festival in Vail this summer. I had to be very discreet on where I positioned myself, so I was way in the back of this outdoor amphitheatre. I used a Canon 100–400mm Image Stabilizing lens, experimented a lot and got all these gorgeous images; some were blurred, some were in focus.” Goodrich currently shoots with a Canon EOS 5D. When she can get closer to the stage, she prefers to use shorter lenses, such as her Canon 24–80mm f/2.8. Then she can position herself on one side of the stage where she’s not obstructing anyone’s view, and shoots up. “It gives you a different perspective,” she explains. She works with ambient light, as flash isn’t allowed during most dance performances, and she prefers not using flash in her photography. At times she uses a monopod (never a tripod), or handholds her camera with IS lenses. “I’m usually in motion, and have a steady hand from painting,” she says. In addition to capturing movement, Goodrich says she likes to capture the spirit and mood of the performance. “Then when I work in Photoshop, I do what I feel is necessary to create an even greater impact.” She works on an iMac G5 with a 23-inch screen, and knows how to use the tools in Photoshop to create a very sensual-looking image. “My eye just knows innately where to take an image, because of my background in painting and studying color.” She prefers creating dark backgrounds to provide a contrast to the performers’ colorful costumes. “When I want to isolate a couple of dancers from the rest of the group, I will create a dark background around them in Photoshop. I also do a lot of blurring techniques using the layers palette and then mask it, and bring up the dancers that I want and sharpen them.” She credits Photoshop CS2 for enabling her to create some beautiful pieces.

To See a Gallery of Bobbie Goodrich's Dance Images, Click Here

Ballet de Monterrey

Anticipate Action
Ideally, she’d like to exhibit her indigenous dance work—both photography and paintings—in a gallery or museum. And for anyone who wants to shoot more successful dance images, Goodrich advises, “I think the most important thing is to have an understanding of the type of dance you’re photographing so that you can anticipate what the dancers are going to be doing. Familiarize yourself with the movement. Watch the performers through the lens and get the rhythm before you click the shutter,” she says. “If you see the motion, then you’ve missed your photo opportunity. You have to learn to anticipate their moves—you’ll know when you’ve captured the moment.”

To see more of Bobbie Goodrich’s work, visit her website at http://www.bobbiegoodrich.com. Her western fine-art images are displayed at Norm Clasen Gallery in Colorado, http://www.normclasen.com.


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