It all started when I decided that I was becoming too much of a "control freak" in my photography -- everything had to be perfect, and the people I was photographing became objects that I manipulated.  The models were bored, and I was far from satisfied with my photographs.

About that time, I met one of my dearest friends, Kristin Young.  (See my portrait gallery for a head shot of Kristin)  She was a featured dancer in a local theater's production of "A Chorus Line".  Together, we collaborated on these photographs.  Later, she introduced me to several of her dancer friends.

We stayed late at night after rehearsal to make these photographs.  The setting was the empty theater stage -- the stage itself was painted black, and large, heavy black velvet curtains were the backdrop.  We turned on only the last bank of stage lights (the ones closest to the back wall -- is that "up stage"?).  This back lighting produced a lot of edge lighting and shadows on the dancers.

Using Tri-X (which I use all the time), I set the camera to f5.6 with a shutter speed of "bulb", which essentially is a setting that leaves the shutter open all the time.  Then, the dancers danced.  Some exposures were short -- maybe a quarter second.  Other exposures were long, maybe 90 seconds.  Sometimes, I fired off some flashes during the movement.  Sometimes, I gave the dancers heavy flashlights to hold in their hands.