Black and white image of an acrobat suspended upside down

Photography series · Editorial

Held in the Air

For: Circus company
Location: Montreal, Canada
Scope: Photography
Published: 22:30:00 26/08/23

An acrobat, a rope and the half second at the top of the swing when nothing moves. The company asked for the show; I asked for the rehearsal, where the light is worse and the concentration is better.

Dancer mid-kick against a teal wall — The dancer, a month earlier: the same half second, on the ground. Photograph by Isaac Macdonald.

Small figure leaping from a rocky cliff into turquoise sea water — And the amateurs: the cliff, the queue, the same silence before the drop. Photograph by Jason Zeis.

The top of the swing

Shot against the white cyclorama with the lens wide open, so the figure is the only dark thing in the frame. The picture is the shape of the body; everything else is there to make it float.

We did the swing thirty times. Twenty-nine of the photographs are of a person on a rope. One is of a person in the air, and the difference between them is a fortieth of a second and a foot that has not yet pointed.

The show is for the audience. The rehearsal is for the photograph.

Crowd at an outdoor event, faces turned to the light — The audience, the following night, from the wings. Photograph by Haotian Zheng.

Black and white

The rehearsal room is lit by fluorescent tubes and a skylight, which together produce a colour no one should print. Black and white was the only honest choice, and once the colour was gone, so was the room: what is left is a body and the air around it.

The top of the swing

Black and white

Comments