Yesterday was a bit of a slog, even if I didn’t do the majority of the work. At 11:15 a.m., Ben and I showed up at a local dance studio, hauled a couple hundred pounds of stuff out of the car and into the room, then spent the next two hours turning one end of it into a 20′ x 20′ theater.
We laid down a new, temporary two-layer floor over the scuffed dance flooring. We swore when the second roll of vinyl sheeting turned out not to be continuous. Then we figured out how to cope. We used copious amounts of gaff tape to keep anything from moving as people ran and jumped and were generally moved about bodily. We hung ten 10′ black velvet curtains across the back. Finally, we lit the whole thing.
Then it was eight and a half hours of dancers. With checks and paperwork and anxious parents who had to wait in the lobby. They came in batches and in costumes designed to make them all look as much alike as possible. It was my job to make sure we knew which of the 1,500 pictures were of which dancers and that we knew what photos their parents wanted.
It was also apparently my job to model a long back and keeping one’s chin up and smiling “naturally”, so I have some unusual sore muscles today to go with my bruised knees from laying the floor.
Finally, after all that, it took an hour to strike the set and pack everything back in the car. Eleven and a half hours of nearly nonstop labor, and it was all for this:
Well, there will be a few more like this as well. It might just be worth it.
Damn. Great photo. Was that a handstand splits, or just really great timing for a one-handed cartwheel, or what?
Excellent timing…plus the dancer being willing to repeat the performance until the hat and the legs and the smile and everything else was in the right place when the shutter clicked.
And you just made some parent’s absolutely best ever. If your others have even some of that quality, you should be making a mint. You probably aren’t, but you should be. Karsh, anyone?
Very nice!
To prevent the bruised knees next time you do something like this, I recommend picking up some quality kneepads at a hardware store.
I’m sad to admit that I have some for gardening but completely failed to bring them along. We’d never done this setup before, so I didn’t think about how much fiddly floor work there would be.
It took me a while to figure out that what was going on behind her leg was a hat.
So, a day of experts in organization, dance, and photography. I bet you are all tired. Take the day off and tell anyone who asks that I said it was all right.