Hi, my name is Haze, and I’m a professional photographer. Thank you for stopping by and welcome to the first article of my blog. I will be posting here a few thoughts on my journey, behind the scene videos, and some information about the way I work. It all really started in late 2013. Yes, I’ve only been doing this professionally (meaning trying to make a living out of it) about a year ago. I decided to specialize myself quickly in dance photography. After a few years covering hip hop dance events (with my partner Marlène under the name BLACKDOUGH ), I took the step and decided to take my photography out of the battle circles. A way for me to open to more creativity. This led me to a work aimed at dancers and performers in general and not only hip hop dancers.
Two local artists helped me a lot when I started. The first one is Fanny, an ex-gymnast and dancer, and the second is Cécile, an accomplished ballet dancer. We met with the help of social media. After a few messages, we decided to meet for a first shoot. I must admit that I rarely look back on my past work unless I’m forced to, so it always feels funny when I do so and realize how much my style and knowledge in photography has evolved. But these images are worth a look as they are a witness of who I was as an artist at the time.
I’ve learned to live with it and it is always good to know how far we’ve traveled. It wasn’t easy at first because I encountered so many obstacles on each shoot I made. Finding a pose or a move to freeze with the artist, choosing the location, and trying to be the closest possible to the idea I had in mind. Editing was also a real pain as I was incapable at the time of using photoshop properly.
Thanks to the patience of the first artists I’ve worked with, I was able to learn quickly from my mistakes and multiplied the number of shoots. With a growing number of artists that wanted to collaborate with me, I began in no time to get closer and closer to the signature look I was aiming to. Within a few months, I was concentrating more on the overall scene, attitude, and story of my pictures, than on the technical stuff that restricted my creativity. The journey is long, and I believe it lasts a lifetime. What I mean, is that you never stop learning. Your style grows, changes, and evolves with time. I don’t know what my style will look like in a few years, nor do I know what will I be shooting, but not knowing what kind of crazy projects and pictures I will make in a near future is what excites me and motivates me every day.
I’ve learned to not be ashamed of the work done so far because it is what has made me the artist I am today. I randomly picked a few pictures from my first tryouts in dance / Performance photography. If only you could see that little grin on my face while I’m looking at these pictures. Great souvenirs! Big thanks to Sandra, Elda, Marthe, Sope Lo, Thibault, Ayoub, Julia, Fanny, Cécile, and Marlène who helped me begin the series "InMotion – My Life in movement" and a special shoutout to Anne Marie who welcomed me at her hôtel Best Western de l'Europe in Strasbourg for a couple of indoor shoots.