5 Frames… Of Cinestill 50D and a contemporary dancer aka, “Scatter in Four” (120 format / EI 50 / Hasselblad 503CX + Carl Zeiss Planar 80mm f/2.8) – by Abel M

They are the elements with which one afternoon we go out to try to capture the vibration that emotions produce during the dance movement. These five photographs are the first of a photographic project that seeks the relationship of the person with the movement.

So the way I found to approach the objective of the project was to look for a certain sense of synchrony, remembering my brief music lessons in my childhood, I thought that in a four-beat rhythm we would have the necessary space and time to capture the vibration of the movement.

Technically choosing Cinestill 50D for this shoot was because of its wide exposure latitude plus it’s a very slow film. At the beginning of the session, I measured the light with my Sekonic L-408 exposure meter, taking different readings in shadow and light to get an idea of ​​the variations in exposure. I needed the exposure to last at least 4 seconds and I knew that using a Hasselblad camera, at sunset with a dancing dancer moving I didn’t have much time to focus, compose the scene and meter the exposure.

This series of conditions was what led me to choose Cinestill 50D, I knew beforehand and preferred to overexpose each photograph, I am also aware that counting four seconds is not exactly a precise time scale, sometimes I was too absorbed in the movement and I know that four seconds suddenly was 6 or 7, it’s hard not to get carried away by the movement. As for the way Cinestill 50D has to render color, I think we are all satisfied, at least for me it is one of the best films I have used.

Like everyone else, I’ve seen long exposure photography at night to capture star trails, car lights, or using flash to freeze part of the movement. In this case, it is not so much freezing a part of the movement, in this project, it is more the continuity of the movement and trying to preserve something that allows us to identify what is happening.

Even when I had a preconceived idea of ​​the images I wanted to make, the session was free because the photographs were happening according to what we saw. We tried to take advantage of the sunset light while discovering structures and machinery, and seeing the light falling.

After this first session, I have learned some more things, I hope they will be reflected in the next sessions. The venue for this first part was a Kansas City Southern de México warehouse, to whom I must thank for their support in holding this session within their facilities, I cannot stop thanking Hanna Mejía for her support in this afternoon of movement.

~ Abel