The making of "Swan lake"

The idea for making this plate was in my mind for months already.

The problem was finding the perfect location for making it.
We needed to find a shallow pond and had to make a
sturdy platform for the ballet dancer to stand on.

As the both the dress and swan were white we also needed cloudy weather
to have a bit more control over the exposure.

I bought 5 umbrella stands (4 for the platform and one for the swann)
and placed wooden sticks into them.
That made it possible to adjust both the platform and swan in height.
That was a must as they both should be able to "dance" on the water surface.

Despite the cloudy weather is was extremely difficult to nail the exposure.

So making this plate took us about 5 hours and the very final plate came out just great.

Many thanks to the whole team:
Heather May (model) and her husband Jan,
Ferry van de Vliet (assistant and photographer)
and Patrice Lesueur (Lightinabox) video.

Click here for : The making of video

 

"Swan Lake...."
26.5 x 26.5 cm tintype
Dallmeyer 5d petzval at f7
exposure time 1 second