Ida May: Creative Movement Photography in White Light
Slow shutter dance photography for movement brands
Ida May is a London choreographer, performer and movement director whose client list runs from Adidas, Nike and Coco de Mer to Peloton, Dove and David Beckham, work that has also taken her behind the camera for Laura Mvula and Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool FC. She works as a personal trainer and movement coach too, which is part of why a shoot with her moves as fast as it does. For this session the concept was White Light: dance, elegance and slow shutter photography, shot in studio against a plain white backdrop that leaves nothing but her movement to look at.
The technique is the point. Longer exposures let a single gesture, a raised arm in a lunge, a deep backbend, layer into one frame, so in two of the four images spirals of light and falling particles trail around her as she moves. Ida's own background as both dancer and movement coach shows in how deliberately each shape is held before it dissolves into the next, which is what makes the blur read as choreography rather than accident. For a very different way of working with time, see Force of Nature, my personal series of wildflowers frozen in ice.
This sits alongside personal brand photography for Rachel Okimo and Atelier108 and creative studio photography in the movement and wellbeing portfolio. For a studio shoot built the same way, here is how commissions run.
If your brand needs a photographer who can see the soul in motion, get in touch.