Ty LaMont Mecham and Professors Val Brinkerhoff & Caroline Prohosky

Photography is prominent form of communication in our society, and I envisioned a body of work that would glorify beauty and form in an aesthetically pleasing way. Two of the best resources for these requirements are the landscape and dancers, both of which I absolutely love and am constantly inspired by. Due to the landscapes I chose to photograph as the dancers’ environment, the work needed to be done in color photography. I also wanted the images to feel alive, so each dancing shape had to be in motion, ranging from large obvious motion to small subtle motion.

My project is not finished due to a few complications. The first unknown, uncontrollable element is the weather. Each shoot depends on how the weather wants to be the day of the shoot. This fact required a very tight schedule in order to get all the shoots done by the end of October before it became too cold for the dancers to be outside.

This brings me to the next problem: the camera. I decided to photograph with a high-end digital back. This decision came when I got the film back after a shoot and I was very disappointed with the results, because none of the images had all the elements come together the way I wanted. The lighting was good in one, but the expression was bad, or both lighting and expression were good, but the leap was caught at the wrong moment. These issues helped me decide only to shoot digital in order to get better results with immediate feedback, and to keep from going so far over the budget with even more rolls of film per shoot. The only high quality digital film back has to be rented through BYU, and the camera had to be sent to the shop in the end of September. It ended up not coming back until the very end of October when the huge snow storms hit and I had to cancel my shoots. So I am waiting for the weather to clear up to finish shooting.

I am very pleased with what I have so far, but I have realized that my project is very involved, and is very large for one person to undertake. My only confirmed assistant ended up not being able to help with the dancing, so I ended up using Caroline Prohosky much more than either of us anticipated.

Costuming alone takes hours for each shoot, locating the right colors, materials, and sizes for the dancer. Then the dancer must try on the costume prior to the shoot to ensure it will work as planned, or to figure out what alterations must be made. In future projects, this is a job that should be given to one another person as their only responsibility, because it takes so much time and doing. I am sure that experience with costuming would also help the process along. Location scouting also takes quite a bit of time, in order to find the right location to shoot and what time of day the lighting will be most beautiful or most appropriate for the image. Getting the dancer there in costume with makeup and hair done, and then getting all the equipment on location as well limits the places I chose to shoot. Assistants are great assets on these shoots, and other photography students often want to assist just for the experience.

The concept is the last area that became harder than I had imagined. My ideas continually changed as I started shooting and even when I just began sketching out the shoots on paper. In order for each image to have its very own life and be able to stand-alone as a strong piece of art without other images from the project, I had to do a lot of pre-planning. I wanted each image to have a specific emotion that clearly reads to the viewer and works with the environment, costuming, and shaping of the dancer. This is the most mentally challenging part of this kind of project, and continually changes while on location, during the shoots. It still evolves.

My project will be completed in April or May and the images will be shown matted and framed in the HFAC in June or July of 2004.