Much of the 1990s for me was taken up with being a ballet parent. My daughter was in Minnesota Dance Theater’s school and was eligible to be in the companies’ wonderful presentation of The Nutcracker. As a volunteer parent I had the opportunity to take photos of the students and professional dancers for press release. That lead to some interesting opportunities for great images as well as other opportunities to work with dancers.

There were a few non-Nutcracker shows that I photographed as well.

I feel honored and lucky to have worked with some really wonderful, talented dancers and to be able to work with MDT’s creative director, Lise Houlton.

About the Images

All of my dance shoots were done on film because these were shot before digital was available. This meant anything you shot had to be planned and needed more deliberate intention, including timing. You couldn’t just keep shooting like you can with digital. I used both 35mm and medium format 6×7 to shoot these images.