Life of the Belly Dance Photographer

Pixie

Michael — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 19:46:02 GMT

I've been insanely busy, just have had zero time lately, so alas this amazing technology for blogging has been underutilized for about the last month. Pixie and I have known of each other for some time now, but never got to meet in person. Late last year, I had suggested to Pixie that in the New Year, whenever I was down in LA sometime, we should try to meet to maybe have coffee, and to talk about art and photography. She had a series of shoots coming up in SF in late-Winter, so we made tentative arrangements to meet here, instead of LA. As it happened, she invited me to a wonderful evening gathering of her friends, as her shoot commenced. Because I don't have a car, and would need to get across the city, Pixie had one of her friends meet me to help me find the gathering. In this process I was met by a nice gentleman named Matthew, who it turns out didn't have a car either, LOL. So we both hit it off really well, sharing both SF/BA geek and startup stories, plus our interest in photography. Matthew and I managed to find the address to the hillside bungalow after leaving the SF Caltrain via taxi. We arrived apparently a bit earlier than Pixie, but in not too long, she arrived with a friend. That evening went by so fast, because I had to return in only a short while to Caltrain, in order to head back to South Bay on this weeknight. But first impressions are indelible. Pixie greeted me with a great big hug. Finally we meet! Then she immediately proceeded to offload gear, food and wine, and to start the gathering ... the overwhelming indelible thought of Pixie I still have from that night is: "Incredible Ball of Energy." Highlights I can recall after a month ... our host is a very famous San Franciscan, his home was incredibly beautiful, and the view was to die for. I was re-introduced to a lovely dancer I had met before, Kristina Cañizares, and also a local SF photographer Juan Carlos, with whom I had photographed a show in the Presidio with some years back. I met another dancer Aradia, one of Pixie's favorite models/dancers. Several other friends appeared during the evening, including punk rock star East Bay Ray. I was also privileged to meet performer Jill Tracy at this gathering. Pixie showed me her traveling camera gear bag ... ah, great minds think alike. Not exactly a mirror image, and I was little surprised that she carried a slightly larger bag then mine for airline travel. But, like me, every nook and cranny stored something useful to the workflow for ready access. We also had some goofy fun. The photo was her idea, and it was taken by Matthew, using Pixie's camera. There was great wine, excellent food, all of Pixie's friends were great, Matthew was great, the discussions about art were just awesome ... I was soooo incredibly sad I could not stay longer that night ... thank-you Pixie!

Return!

Michael — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 06:47:05 GMT

Canon Factory Service is AMAZING! Every repair job they've done for me has been excellent, the camera always comes back in excellent shape. They repaired my EOS-1D Mark III camera very quickly. I received an interim email saying that they understood what was wrong, and that it would cost me $0.00. Apparently, very early on Saturday morning CFS shipped the camera via 2-day FedEx. For some reason, it came today (Monday) on the FedEx truck. My only cost was the $88 to send it FedEx insured, overnight to CFS in SoCal. I unpacked the box, put a battery in, and went around the yard looking for things to photograph. The camera handles just like brand new, it worked excellently well. So glad my baby has returned to me! I totally need the low-light and fast action performance of this incredible camera. I have a wedding reception to cover in LA early this weekend, followed immediately by Sandra's Student Night, right after coming back to Silicon Valley. I don't use flash for these gigs, the pictures are always taken in available light. With fast lenses, the 1D Mark III has superb 14-bit color imaging for the dark interiors one typically encounters at weddings, and for belly dance club lighting. The task now is to get the other one of The Twins down to CFS. This will likely be a much more expensive repair, because of the cracked LCD, and the fact that the camera was dropped, which is definitely not covered under warranty. Then, there are some lenses that need replacement and/or repair. I'm well set for now though. I have both the 1D Mark III and 1Ds Mark II available for various upcoming gigs, including the all-day photography work at Rakkash West next month, and Belly Dancer of the Year. These two cameras work out very well, because the 1Ds Mark II is a full-frame camera, whereas the 1D Mark III is a 1.3X FoV camera. This circumstance allows one set of lenses to work at two different focal lengths, on the two different bodies. I'll most likely use the 1D Mark III for all solo and duo belly dancers, but switch to the 1Ds Mark II for troupes. Doing photography this way favorable because the troupe belly dancers are afforded higher resolution on the 1Ds Mark II, which works to allow them to be more visually distinct in the frame, and for a given lens, a wider field of view is available. Happy, happy!

My baby got sent back

Michael — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 21:14:46 GMT

There were some gear casualties during the 3rd Annual Belly Dance Photography Marathon, alas. I have (2) EOS 1D Mark III cameras, a 1Ds Mark II camera, and then (2) older EOS 20D's, which are called the Armageddon Backup cameras. I mainly use the EOS 1D Mark III's, because they are much faster cameras, have more dynamic range for color, a larger LCD preview screen, and easier user-interface; I call them Camera 1, and Camera 2, respectively, or The Twins. The EOS 1Ds Mark II definitely still has a place in the studio. It's esp. useful when we're doing certain kinds of for-print work. Also for location work, where cropping could be beneficial, because it's higher 16.7 Mpixel resolution (the 1D Mark III's are 10.1 Mpixel cameras). But normally, I use The Twins as Main Cameras. Previously, Camera 1 was sent back to the Canon Factory Service because it had been damaged, and was on a voluntary recall list for a focus problem. In a completely freak accident during the Marathon, Camera 2 fell a short-distance off a step-stool, and completely cracked it's LCD screen. Ugh! It's completely damaged, though I suspect it does still work as a camera. But one cannot use the LCD itself for any menu settings. Made me sad, but now and then, belly dance is rather tough on gear. Well, I was using Camera 2, because (mostly) sitting in storage, Camera 1 developed a problem where something lose was "floating around" inside. It works exceptionally well, though there was a mild distortion problem in the viewfinder, after it came back from it's first repair. I speculated at the time this had to do with the fix Canon produced for the focus problem, and it was mostly notable with a 50mm prime lens on the body. It seemed that perhaps something involved in that fix came loose? It was used somewhat less heavily than Camera 2, because at a some older belly dance show, the rubber button on the multi-controller somehow had gotten lose and then lost. Only a little annoying for studio work, and not really an issue for show work. But just sitting around, Camera 1 definitely has some kind of "plink" going on inside, and that just cannot be a good thing. Since Camera 2 is likely in need of a expensive repair, and I'm utterly reliant on both these cameras, I decided to call Canon Factory Service to learn what to do about them. Well, it turns out that with the first repair Camera 1 is STILL under warranty, because Canon extended the warranty a full year after the repair date! Yay! So, yesterday I sent my baby, Camera 1, back to CFS, insured via FedEx. Was sad to send it, :-(. But in a way also glad, because while it works, the thing moving around inside it would seem to be a portent for a catastrophic failure later when I can least afford it. Camera 1 was my first extremely fast camera. I had researched this camera, and then had to wait for months for it become available. Then, one day, my local dealer called, and said they had my unit. I was so overjoyed. I immediately hopped on Caltrain, to head to the dealer in Palo Alto to pick it up. Had lunch there, then headed back home. On arrival, I showed the box to my wife as happy as a little kid on Christmas morning. The 1D Mark III is an incredible machine! I'll have to address poor Camera 2's likely more expensive repair at some later time. The Twins will soon enough be back together. Gear maintenance is a fact of life; I discovered this also checking in with other belly dance photographer friends. I'm going to join Canon Professional Services, and just start a regular maintenance window for all of this gear. Cannot wait for Camera 1 to return. Lots of work coming up to do.

Even More: Shoshanna and Surreyya

Michael — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 20:50:33 GMT

Shoshanna and Surreyya have now posted lovely photos they selected from the December 2008 marathon! Shoshanna's start here (and includes the gorgeous "Sunset" photo above): http://people.tribe.net/shoshannaland/photos/88d80b6c-21f1-4681-8cdd-1d5636f94282 And Surreyya's fabulous belly dance glamour can be seen here: http://people.tribe.net/4c25ff81-0316-451b-a12b-79deb19d2559/photos/b4bf27e5-6fb7-4f48-ae99-df7ad3a9e115 Enjoy!

More from the 3rd Annual Belly Dance Photography Marathon

Michael — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 13:26:35 GMT

OMG, we got so much good work this last December! I'm just deluged with gorgeous belly dance photos from all of the lovelies who worked with me for the 3rd Annual. Hope to post some more of my favorites later. So far, this is only just small fraction of the work we accomplished together this last December. Really want to thank every single one of the dozen or so belly dancers and teachers, plus one troupe of lovelies, who all collaborated with me this in this last month to create such beautiful art. Thank-you! It was fabulous! The photo above is the angelic Mychelle. Check out the photo gallery, which also contains several new photos selected by the belly dancers as their favorities: http://tribes.tribe.net/michaelbaxter/photos

3rd Annual Belly Dance Photography Marathon

Michael — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 07:53:27 GMT

This week ended my 3rd Annual Belly Dance Photography Marathon, which occurred mostly during the month December 2008. This month consisted of a gala show, one belly dance festival, and 10 separate studio photo shoots. This year my Marathon studio photo shoots were more selective, a trend I'd like to continue with into 2009. I prefer to work with belly dancers who are seriously dedicated to their art, because that disposition very much matches mine, and so working together is much more synchronistic. The year before, for the 2nd Annual Belly Dance Photography Marathon in December 2007, I was playing "catch up" for numerous photo shoots that had not been possible to schedule. So in December of that year, I photographed some 45 belly dancers, though most were in two troupes. I did not want to repeat that so much, preferring to work more deeply creatively, and with fewer dancers rather than more. Another thing I did this last December 2008 was force myself to use new lighting and other aspects of the photography. I did my first ever High Dynamic Range (HDR) belly dance photo, a technique surely of value for incredible skin tone results. Over this Holiday break time, I've also been improving my imaging skills, and have been learning the Adobe CS4 tool suite in more detail, as well as LightZone, and some other specialized digital skin care software. As part of this learning, I discovered that Photoshop CS4 has a method similar to the HDR technique for extreme depth-of-field. The photo above is Aazura Nour, part of our collaboration on Cleopatra. It was taken using a Lens Baby 3G. More detailed blog entry, with more photos here: http://raksphoto.blogspot.com/

Belly Dance music in New England

Michael — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 14:51:44 GMT

One of the real treats from the second Belly Dance Legends of New England photo shoot this Fall was getting to see and hear live musicians who play in the area, often for belly dancers. Apparently, there is a quite a music scene in the New England area, and the musicians are very good. The gentleman playing oud in the photo is Mal Barsamian, who is a very well known musician. I was so privileged to hear him play for a gig we had to travel quite a ways from Boston for. He made really beautiful clarinet sounds that I'd never heard before. After several hot sets playing the clarinet, he picked up the oud and wailed on that for many songs, it was incredible. One of my 2009 belly dance goals is to understand the music much better, and of course learn a lot more about the musicians who have contributed to belly dance.

Belly Dance Legends in New England

Michael — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 20:13:18 GMT

In the middle of November, I traveled to the East Coast for a second photo shoot in a series devoted to documenting the history of the famous belly dancers and musicians in New England. This history is being preserved by my producer Amy Smith, or Alizah, who is a belly dancer, teacher, publisher, and writer in the Boston area. The rush photo above features a famous New England costume designer named Shadia. It was taken about mid-way through our mid-November week-end photo shoot. We created a scene where she's dreaming about her costumes, and a shoe is magically floating in air. So, I asked her to throw a shoe at me, which you can kind of see in the photo. Shadia is surrounded by several of her creations, which our art department hurriedly created on the photographic backdrop. This was a really fun trip, all hosted by Amy who offered dazzling hospitality. This was a second round of photographing incredibly experienced belly dance lovelies, as well as a keener focus on the area musicians, many of whom are still playing, some three decades later. I got to photograph some of these music stars at two different clubs, so this was both a location and studio project.

New England

Michael — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 16:14:12 GMT

I'm here in New England, for another belly dance photo shoot. My first photo shoot here was produced by Aazura Nour: http://www.aazura.com/ This was a watershed event, it was very successful Boston photo shoot. I met and photographed numerous belly dance lovelies on that trip. Among other things, on that trip Aazura Nour also connected me with a local dancer and producer Amy Smith, who interviewed me. Amy Smith publishes Belly Dance New England: http://www.bellydancenewengland.com/index.html I went back again last March for Amy, who invited me to work on the first Legacy Stars photo shoot, which I consider a deep honor. This was also a truly amazing photoshoot! I was meeting and photographing a host of stars from the 1960's and 1970's, the belly dancers who started everything here in New England. When I met them, they were all 60 year old plus HOTTIES! We all had a fabulous time together. Amy is working on a detailed documentary about these Legacy Stars, the cross-cultural currents involved, and the contributions these dancers made to belly dance. In addition, she's been seeking out all the musicians who made this scene. Last trip, I also photographed several of the key musicians. So, I'm here again now in November, back for a second round of photography. Looks like we'll do one more photo session as well, in the Spring. We load props and photo gear tonight, and the photography begins Saturday and Sunday. When I was here in March, there was still snow. Now, in the Fall, it's rainy-wet, but still a very pretty New England. This is sooo much fun!