A few months ago I was asked to shoot a poster for Gaynor Minden, a company that makes professional ballet pointe shoes. Pointe shoes in case you don’t know are the “pointy slippers” that help ballet dancers to walk on the tips of their toes, I say help because it takes many sprains, broken toes and huge amounts of dedication to get it right even with the specialised shoes!
Although Gaynor Minden has more than enough posters none of them feature South African Dancers, Louise Cole from LSC wanted to change that, hence the shoot.
I arrived at the Artscape theater in Cape Town for the shoot, I was working with about 8 dancers from the cast of Romeo and Juliette, there was no specific brief other than “get great shots”, not a big ask when working with professional dancers! Most of the shots were done using a mixture of stage lighting and flash, depending on the mood I wanted. I also needed to keep in mind the stage lighting was not enough light to freeze the motion unless I shot on very high ISO’s.
Working with the dancers was a breeze and asking them for take after take even though they had a full show that night was done without complaint, I’m amazed at how the dancers bodies must get drilled to do the things they do!
I asked if I could try a pair of pointe’s… after everyone manged to stop rolling on the floor laughing (which took quite a while!!) I was told men don’t wear pointe shoes and they did not have my size anyway, I jumped in and told them ummmm not for me ummmm for ummm ummm a friend? 
If you are looking for a comprehensive range of Ballet Dance gear in Cape town, contact Louise, she is in Observatory just down the road from UCT. (+27 83 561 5929)
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Wow these are stunning!
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