ABNORMAL

Bill Wadman

Bill Wadman is a portrait photographer from New York, USA, I am focusing on Wadman's project; Dancers in Motion. This shoot came from the idea given to Wadman from sports photographer Marvin Newman showing a slow shutter speed photograph of a boxer. Wadman was then inspired and decided to experiment with long exposure photography hoping to work with athletes. His first attempt was with a professional dancer as he described the outcomes as 'incredible' and from then on, continued to work with dancers, thus the project becoming 'Dancers In Motion'. The series was shot using a Canon 5D Mark II and a 35mm f/1.4 lens. Each of the images isasimple exposure taken in a very dark room, with a single soft light shining from above onto the dancers. Wadman used 3secondshutter speed with his lends stopped down to f/11 (to prevent depth of field from being too shallow, since he was aiming for motion focus blur rather than out of focus blur). 

I am focusing on Wadmans work as it has a spiritual feel to it that fits with my 'Abnormal' theme. I believe the lighting as well as the blur, a result of movement and the long exposure, contributes to the paranormal theme as it's slightly eerie lighting that shines down onto the model instead of lighting from eye level (or similar) angles. The dancers are also placed onto a black background which I really like as again, it gives a dark feel. What I like most about this shoot is that Wadman has captured a motion blur and not an out of focus blur (one of his aims). We can still see clear details of the dancers, like structure of bones in their hands and feet or even the structure of their faces, however it's still difficult to see this at first because of the long exposure technique has when the dancer moves.