America's Finest City... Dances! I'm back!

Hello Dear Neglected Blog,

Well, a new season has started over at the San Diego Ballet. Our 20th as a matter of fact. Lots to talk about and I will, but right now we are getting ready to open a photo exhibition in our hallway gallery. Bear with me if you already know this. To commemorate our anniversary, we have commissioned photographer Graham Blair to shoot our company dancers against various iconic San Diego locations, like Heather Anzalone in Balboa Park below.

Graham has done a wonderful job and printed a variety of the images for the gallery. For that, I have pretty much left it up to him which images he wanted to. However, we are also posting them on the website, and for that purpose, I have chosen the 5 I like the most. Photographers and dancers have different priorities in pics (as has been mentioned before). So I am going to take this opportunity to post a few of the pics and explain why I like them.

Heather's photo above is a no brainer. Everybody loves it. The costume, dancer, and backdrop are so harmonious that they look like a painting. That said I am rather fond of another photo that didn't make either the photography exhibit or the website. It is very similar.

I love this image because it makes Heather look like a movie star from the 30's or 40's. Like Ginger Rogers in Flying Down To Rio. And it also is much more representational of real Heather's personality. But as nice as it is, there is just something a little more "special" about the other one. Since it is so similar to the other in terms of setting and pose, we had to decide between the two.

Most of these shoots have been in the morning. Heather's was no exception. But we did have to do a bit of battling photographers. Balboa Park is such a popular setting, we were shooting at the same time a bride was getting her photos done. They are pretty much just out of camera range in all of the shots we took around the pool. Sorry to ruin the illusion.