Five secrets of high-speed dance photography

"Don't try this at home!" cautions Canon Ambassador Sascha Hüttenhain, describing what goes into his beautiful high-speed images of dancers enveloped in clouds of powder. One of the key ingredients of the photo sessions for these is as much as 15kg of flour, scooped up in dustpans by assistants and thrown at the model from either side.

Sascha is known for his refined, minimalist style of dance, portrait, fashion and advertising work for national and international clients, produced both on location and from his photo studios in Frankfurt and Siegen, Germany. But it's in his fine-art images of dancers that technical excellence and creative flair really need to come together.

"The hardest part is finding the right moment to release the shutter when the dancer is running through a fast routine," says Sascha. "This can only be learned through experience, but naturally a camera with a fast and reliable autofocus system helps too." This is why he uses mostly the EOS-1D X Mark III, Canon's flagship action camera, and it's for this same reason that he turned to the Canon EOS R6, which boasts an AF focusing speed of 0.05 seconds, for his most recent project, photographing a breakdancer.

Here Sascha shares some insights into his creative dance photography techniques, including the lighting he uses to capture dancers and clouds of flour in motion against a dark backdrop.

"When I started out, I built up my experience by shooting photos at theatre shows," says Sascha. "While this was great, I never had any influence on the process, the scenes, the posing or the lighting. So I decided to invite the dancers to my studio, where I was able to implement my own ideas in the best way possible.

"To this day, I do a lot of planning and preparation for each session, particularly when it comes to the outfits and styling. But a photo shoot is a joint effort between the model and a photographer, so I like to give the dancers the space they need to develop their own ideas. And there are always spontaneous and serendipitous moments during the shoot that you have to be ready to take advantage of."

In order to involve the dancer in the creative process, Sascha typically shoots with his camera wirelessly tethered to a laptop, where everyone on the shoot can quickly view JPEG previews of his shots. "I do this whether I'm working in the studio or on location, as it allows everyone to analyse the images as they are being captured, and to discuss ways in which they can be improved. This speeds up the workflow and increases everyone's motivation. The larger screen enables you to refine the small details that can make or break an image, and helps to avoid any mistakes."

Rather than throw handfuls of flour himself, Sascha relies on assistants or on the individual dancer. "As you might imagine, precise coordination and timing are crucial for a great photo. The quantity of flour and the distance from which it's thrown often determines whether large or small particles are visible and plays an important role in the shape and texture of the clouds.

"When it comes to lighting this type of shoot, I use strobes in 30x180cm gridded strip light softboxes, positioned to the left and right of the model. Lighting the set from above can also produce exciting images. I dial in a mid-level power setting on the lights so that I'll have the option of shooting a sequence of shots at 16fps with my Canon EOS-1D X Mark III."

Hot lamps and clouds of flour dust do not mix well, and Sascha recommends covering the lights and battery packs to protect them. "It is also important that you take a break after about an hour so that the dust can settle and the concentration in the room does not become too great."

Freezing balletic movements with flash is tricky enough, but it's even more difficult to keep the diverse range of moves performed by a street dancer or breakdancer in focus, let alone framing and capturing the perfect moment. Sascha says a good understanding of the "beats" of the routine is crucial for planning out your camera and lighting positions.

"Both ballet dancers and breakdancers move very quickly, so it's important that the dancer walks you through their movements before you take the photo, as that will allow you to adjust the camera and prepare for action. For the breakdance shoot, I knew it would be important to position the camera at quite a low level, as this way the dancer would have a greater presence in the picture than if shot from a higher angle. I also chose a short focal length of 24mm to ensure there was enough room in the frame."

Photographing a breakdancer in full flow requires an autofocus system that can keep up. Sascha says the fast Dual Pixel CMOS AF II system of the Canon EOS R6 was "just right" for this kind of situation. "I set the camera to Servo AF with Face Tracking and Eye AF enabled, and it stayed locked on throughout the routine. It worked brilliantly, even during the fastest movements and turns. The EOS R6's fast continuous shooting speed of up to 20fps was also perfect for the breakdance shoot."