More Dance from the Past
November 8th, 2007
Here’s another of my old dance photos. This is from a concert at Ohio University in 1975. The dancers are Lisa Eck and David Novitz. I’m afraid I don’t have a record of who was the choreographer for this piece. Ohio University School of Dance faculty members Gladys Bailin, Les Ditson and Pat Welling were the choreographers featured in this concert, but I don’t remember which of them did this particular piece.
David was a dancer and a photographer. As I remember, which is not reliable after all these years, David found he could not photograph dance because he was too involved in it. He was distracted by details of dance technique and that kept him from focusing his attention on photo technique. That is a problem I’ve never encountered since I can not dance at all and have no real knowledge of dance technique. I still view and respond to dance in a more naive manner and I prefer it that way.
This concert was fun for me but also a lot of work under pressure. I photographed the concert in dress rehearsal then developed the film, made proof sheets, edited the shoot, made 11×14 prints, mounted the prints and hung a show of the dance photos from the concert in the lobby of the concert hall in time for the performances a couple days later.
This photo has been used and published quite a bit. It could look familiar to you if you follow dance since it appeared in Dance Magazine many times in the 1970s when the Ohio University School of Dance used it in their recruiting ad in that magazine for quite a while.
Shakers
November 5th, 2007
I’ve done some digging around in the attic and found some of my old dance photos. These are from the dance, “Shakers” by Doris Humphrey. Doris Humphrey died in 1958, but this dance was performed at Ohio University in 1970 thanks to a system of writing down, or scoring, a dance that was used to record it for the future. I don’t have any information from the production, but I remember that there was a guest artist who came in to interpret the score and direct the choreography.
The photos here are from a newspaper full page layout about the dance. It was published in the Newark (Ohio) Advocate where I was working as a photographer during the summers while I went to school at Ohio University.
I don’t think I ever really knew why my newspaper decided to print this story about a dance concert that was already over and had happened at a college 100 miles away. Maybe my old friend Bruce Humphrey who was the photo editor at the Advocate back then can tell me…but I’d be really surprised if he remembers such a minor event that many years ago. Most likely they were just being nice to me.
This dance was absolutely electrifying. The tension between the men and the women was visible. Neither sex ever crossed the line in the middle of the stage. This, of course, was a representation of the celibacy of the Shaker movement.
The quality of these files is not all that great. I photographed them from the original newspaper paste-up, which was put together with rubber cement in 1970. I simply took a photo with my D200 of each of the photos in the layout. I did a little clean up, but not too much. There is some damage from the rubber cement, but I think the prints have held up very well after all these years.
All My Life’s A Circle
November 2nd, 2007
I loved it. I didn’t even begin to understand it, but I knew it was special and it meant something. After that concert I read John Cage’s books and listened to his music and I began to understand what he was doing and to learn from it.
Boo!
October 27th, 2007
It’s trick or treat night here, so here’s an oldie Halloween photo for you…Halloween Eve.
The weather isn’t looking too good for tonight. We live in the middle of the city, but we can never know how many trick or treaters will show up on any given year. We’ve had hundreds and there was one cold miserable night when only two wanted candy badly enough to go out and ask for it.
So, I’m back from the store and have plenty of candy on hand now. Our house is always popular because I only buy the good candy. Good is, of course, defined as candy that I like. That comes in handy on the years when no one comes begging…more for me.
I’m real busy right now working on a new photo project. Should have photos to share in a few days. It’s something completely different.
Vassanta’s Pick
October 23rd, 2007
I’ve mentioned before that I consider my models to be co-creators of our photos. I always give my models all the photos we do together on a disk in full resolution. I’ll also photoshop their favorites for them if they don’t want to do that work, or are not skilled at photoshop.
I often hear concern from other photographers that models will chose the wrong photos or that they will do a bad job preparing them. My point is that I think the models have just as much right to do as they please with the photos as I do. After all, that’s THEM…that is their image, their body, their face. In many ways they have a lot more of themselves invested in those photos than I do. Why shouldn’t they make their own choices and do with those photos as they please?
Sure, sometimes I don’t think the photos a model may chose are the best photos from our work together. But models often look for different things in photos than what I’m looking for. And why shouldn’t they? Is my vision the only one that is valid? Of course not.
But, more often than not I benefit from the editing that my models do. Sometimes they find photos that I might have overlooked in my own editing process. And, seeing what they like from a shoot tells me more about them and helps me understand what other people may be seeing in my work.
This photo is one that Vassanta chose from our last shoot together. She did the photoshopping on it and sent me a copy to see what I thought. Well, I think it’s a fine photograph…if I do say so myself. Vassanta’s great beauty really shines through here. Thanks, Vassanta, for finding the shot and getting all ready for me to post on here.
Wood Nymphs
October 19th, 2007
Simply Vassanta
October 16th, 2007
Here’s another photo of Vassanta for you. I’ve spent some time today editing my last shoot with this beautiful model and it looks like I’ll be posting more of her over the next few weeks.
French Feature and an Anniversary
October 13th, 2007
A French web magazine has done a feature on my work. You can read it here: http://universdartistes.blogspot.com/2007/10/dave-levingston.html
I’m also doing an interview with them, so maybe there will be a second story sometime soon.
Also, I just noticed that about the time I was dealing with the death of our friend this blog passed its first anniversary. Sort of snuck up on me. I’m not sure where I’m going to be going with this thing, but I guess I’ll keep it up a while longer and see where it leads me.
Vassanta
October 13th, 2007
From warmer days, here’s a shot I did with Vassanta http://www.modelmayhem.com/member.php?id=209943 under a bridge in a little town north of Columbus. The light and backgrounds under bridges are often very nice. And, even in busy places, people seldom look under bridges, so it’s possible to shoot nudes, even with busy traffic going overhead.
There’s more to this story, though. If you look closely you will notice some small dark marks on the cement behind Vassanta. We both just thought they were marks on the wall…until Vassanta backed up against the cement and then noticed that those “marks” were actually little caterpillars which were now crawling all through her hair. The resulting screaming was loud and long…and put an end to our shooting in that location, lest someone come to investigate the screams of a woman in distress from under the bridge. There are hazards to doing figure work outdoors…but the bugs were harmless, other than upsetting Vassanta to no end. We were still picking them out of her hair as we drove back to her apartment…each newly discovered bug producing a new round of screams and convulsions.
But despite all that, Vassanta still is willing to work with me again…and we may do some more shooting this coming week. Thanks Vassanta, you are great!
It’s Getting Cold Outside
October 10th, 2007
