Margie Gillis at Glorious Vintage

I found this absolutely fantastic photo on Flickr:

Photo Scanned from Margie Gillis Booklet (1995 Place des Arts, Montréal Performance) by Glorious Vintage, November 2009.

I absolutely would love to do a shooting like this myself! Any willing North Yorkshire dancers reading this ;-)?

The photograph shows professional dancer Margie Gillis. You can find her biography and more information about her work in the Canadian Encyclopedia. I wonder how often she had to do this jump in order to capture the perfect moment. She has this amazing grace in her movement, which looks just great and gives the picture its dynamic. Margie Gillis was invested as a Member of the ORDER OF CANADA in 1988 and received the Walter Carsen Prize for career achievement in the performing arts in 2008. How cool is that?

I'm not quite sure who the photographer is, since it says on Flickr that the picture was scanned from one of Margie Gillis' own booklets. There is another guy mentioned alongside the photograph, Jack Udashkin. However, he is a bespoke producer of dance and was at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa for 12 years (1988-2000), so he is most likely not the one who took the picture. At the moment, he is developing a project to mount Festival Chaosmos, a biannual international dance festival in Montreal, which began in 2007.

I love her style so much, I just have to post another picture of her, which is on top of that taken by one of my favourite photographers Annie Leibovitz!

Photo by Annie Leibovitz, showing Margie Gillis in "Torn Roots, Broken Branches," choreographed by Margie Gillis

I want a studio!

Hannah van Helsing

The quest for the holy chamber had exhausted our bodies and minds. Only a few of us were left of the fellowship that had set off a long time ago from a distant land in order to find it. Most of our brave men had payed the ultimate price to get us to where we were then; the long sought destination ahead.

This was the moment when suddenly the air got cold and darkness fell upon us, when evil powers reared up in their final and forceful attempt to prevent us from entering the chamber and bind them in their forgotten prisons for another thousand years.

The battle was almost lost when the reversal of fortune arrived to our salvation in person of Hannah van Helsing(*):

Photo by Tomer Jacobson (thetomer), March 2009.

Everything happened so fast, if it wouldn't have been for the Tomer and his lighting techniques beyond those of the forces of darkness, we wouldn't even have ever known who saved us!

So it only remains to say great model, holy lighting, unusual location = great shot! I like it very much (although I would have cropped it slightly tighter, but hey, it's van Helsing ;-) )!

If you like this shot too and would like to see a more of thetomer, check out his
website and his Flickr account. He has also got a blog, which is unfortunately (at least for me) in Hebrew only.

(*) Hannah is Gabriel's less famous - but actually more awesome - little sister.

Bollywood meets National Railway Museum

When wandering around in York on one of the sunny weekends we tend to have lately, I watched a promo performance of Indian dancers on the market square.

Photo by Martin A. Trefzer, March 2009.

They were pretty good and when I talked to them I learned that they are a dancing ensemble from Birmingham and that there will be an Indian culture festival at the National Railway Museum in York, UK (4-17th April 2009). Being interested in music and dance, particularly in taking pictures of such performances, I was glad to hear about the festival.

So I will definitely pay the NRM a visit and try to get some colourful shots of Bollywood coming to the National Railway Museum!

Check out my older post about a belly dance performance at a festival in York.

York PhotoSoc - Competition Next

Following up from the post yesterday, here's my second favourite from the York PhotoSoc competition 2009.


Photo by Kerry Grainger 2009.

It is not very surprising (at least to me, as I am interested in doing more dance shootings like this one myself) that I like this photo: it's a great silhouette in natural lighting conditions, dynamic, about dance, and a cool outfit is involved!

Particularly the fact that the dancer's face and hand are lit, whilst everything else remains a nice silhouette adds this extra bit to this shot for me. Only thing is that there could be slighly more sky on the right hand side, but I suppose it takes quite a few shots anyways to capture the whole model in mid-air!

Check Kerry's Flickr page out, as there are more interesting shots like this one!

Helena Belly Dancer from Leeds, UK

I took some photos of a belly dance event at the York Carnival 2008. Helena is a great performer and teacher of various belly dance styles, based in Leeds, North Yorkshire, UK.

When I recently visited her website, I was pleased to see that she used some of my photos on her website (the two that are in focus ;-)). Thanks Helena!

Photo by Martin Trefzer 2008

This is one of my favourites of this event last year. Some more photos can be found on my Flickr page. Hey Helena (or other dancers / dance groups based around York)! In case you come across my blog and would like to do a shooting or get some pictures of an event, don't hesitate to contact me. I am very interested in doing dance/motion photography.