this is an article I’ve been wanting to write ever since I first came to Newfoundland and walked into my grandmothers study, Something I’ve never talked about before on this blog is my grandmother who passed away a few years ago, she used to be a painter, she would paint landscapes, still lives, and a few portraits.
When I walked into my grandmothers study I saw this painting she made years ago
Instantly I was amazed at how similar it was to a photograph I took about two years ago, also of a dancer in a dress in almost the exact same position, jumping in a different direction.
This was a photo I took for Halifax dance, a non profit dance group in Halifax that contacted the arts school I was going to and asked if there were any students that wanted to do some promotional photography for them, I was ecstatic and immediately said yes.
This was one of those photoshoots where it seems as though everything happened better than I could have expected. All of the dancers were perfectly synchronized and never hesitated when the instructor told them which moves to do, it’s the kind of skill that you only get with lots of repeated practice. The place where we did the photo shoot is on the Halifax waterfront which is usually a busy spot but today there weren’t very many people walking around which made the whole process much easier, and to top it off the weather was absolutely perfect. After about 20 minutes of photographing the girls as a group I knew I wanted to get a shot with George’s Island because it’s a well known Halifax landmark. Most days if you go to this spot you would be looking in this direction and there would be industrial buildings behind the island, but today there was just enough fog in the harbor to block out the view of the industrial buildings (thank you photo gods). And just as we were getting ready the clouds above us started to break and the sun shone down with a tiny bit of haze, there wasn’t a whole lot of contrast between the highlights and shadows but it still provided a direct light source. For those of you that aren’t photographers it was essentially the best possible scenario that could of happened (again, thank you photo gods).
And that’s the story of how I took the image, I’m sure I saw my grandmothers painting before I took the image, but I never thought about it while taking the photograph, I never even thought about it until I saw the painting again, I don’t know if I was drawn to this sort of composition subconsciously or if it’s just a coincidence, but either way I feel blessed to have made an image in the same style as my grandmother. Life is full of funny things like that.
-Jeremy