New Boston Ballet ballerina

Boston, MA 101210 Keenan Kampa of Oak Hill, Virginia recently joined the Boston Ballet as a recent graduate of the Vaganova Ballet Academy in St. Petersburg, Russia – an unprecedented honor for an American student. (Essdras M Suarez/ Globe Staff)/ G
BEHIND THE SCENES: I recently photographed a group of new Boston Ballet dancers and remember being awestruck of how much Keenan look like the quintessential ballerina. She reminded me of one of those tiny ballerina dolls on top of a music box. So I was ecstatic when I got the assignment to photograph her for an upcoming profile the paper is doing on her. I had already photographed her once while practicing so this time I wanted something different. I was a little disheartened when offered yet another dance studio for the portrait photo shoot. But my intrepid Boston Ballet PR showed me these boxes and suggested I take look at this setup to see if it might work. I'm always saying that two heads are better than one so I was happy she was present to suggest it. TECH STUFF: I'm currently at an interesting point when it comes to lighting. My Elite 1200 pack just blew up a week prior and what this means is that I have been forced to become a minimalist and to embrace the one-light effect of my back up lighting kit. So these images were made with one square soft box, 36" x 48", coming from above and slightly to the side;thus, I kept her looking up most of the time to avoid harsh shadows from the overhead light. ISO: 100, Speed: 250th sec, Aperture: 9.0, WB Flash.