A behind-the-scenes look at a Newcastle Dance Academy promo shoot for Hands, Feet & Animals, part of the Newcastle Music Festival at the Harold Lobb Concert Hall, Newcastle Conservatorium.

Every dance shoot starts well before the first frame is taken. For me, the final image is already forming before the dancer steps onto the background. I am thinking about light, shape, negative space, colour, shadow, and how the finished edit needs to feel once everything comes together.

A Promotional Shoot With a Performance in Mind

This recent shoot was created for Newcastle Dance Academy as part of the promotional lead-up to Hands, Feet & Animals, a Newcastle Music Festival performance at the Harold Lobb Concert Hall, Newcastle Conservatorium. The performance brings together dance and live music, with Newcastle Dance Academy dancers appearing alongside musicians in a program featuring Dave Brubeck’s Points on Jazz and Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals.

The design concept was built around contrast and shape. I wanted the images to feel somewhere between a rehearsal room and a stage poster — controlled enough to feel designed, but still alive with the energy of the dancers. That meant choosing the background, lighting direction, and overall mood based on the final edited images I wanted to create, rather than simply reacting to what was happening in front of the camera.

Letting the Dancers Move

One of the best parts of photographing dancers is that they already arrive with a language of their own. They know their bodies, their timing, their lines, and the feeling behind the movement. With a shoot like this, I am not trying to invent poses from scratch; I am looking for the moments within the choreography that already have strength, rhythm, and shape.

Those shapes were created through the work of the very talented choreographer Miss Jess from Newcastle Dance Academy, so my job was to photograph them in a way that respected the dance. Sometimes that means giving the dancers room to move. Sometimes it means waiting for the split second where a line, turn, jump, or gesture lands perfectly in the frame. I might guide small details, but the movement itself needs to stay connected to the choreography.

Lighting With the Final Image in Mind

Once the movement is there, the lighting has to do its part. I want the light to support the choreography rather than fight it — catching the line of a body, carving out a shape, adding drama where it helps, and leaving enough shadow to keep the image feeling theatrical.

That is where I take the most control. Before I begin shooting, I usually have a clear idea of how I want the final image to feel, so the background and lighting are set with the edit already in mind. For this shoot, some images leaned into a darker, stage-inspired look, while others moved into a different colour tone to give the studio more variety. The fun part is bringing all of those pieces together — choreography, timing, light, shadow, background, and edit — until the final image feels both polished and full of movement.

For me, that is the balance I am always looking for in dance photography: letting the choreography lead, while using lighting and editing to give each moment its finished visual voice.

Promoting the Upcoming Performance

The final images are designed to work across posters, social media, website updates, and event promotion, but they also become part of the dancers’ own record of the performance. That is one of the things I enjoy most about this type of work. The photographs have a practical purpose, but they can still feel considered, artistic, and personal.

As Newcastle Dance Academy prepares for Hands, Feet & Animals, this shoot was a chance to create visual material that reflects the energy of the dancers and the atmosphere of the performance before it reaches the stage.

In the end, shoots like this are about more than creating promotional images. They are about taking the movement, choreography, lighting, and design concept and shaping them into photographs that feel connected to the performance before the audience ever sees it live.

Check out more of our Dance Photography work here and get in touch to find out how we can be there for your studio to help promote your next event, or just capture your amazingly talented dancers at their best