Proposal - Dana Weltman

Dana Weltman

Motion Photography

Final Project Proposal

October. 22, 2019

For my final project, I plan to photograph the movement and emotion of dance. I decided to photograph dance because as simple as photographing dance may seem, we find and act out dance in many different, unique, and subtle ways. We dance to perform, for emotion, when were bored, having fun, and even by accident. There are different forms of dance with different movements, music, and emotions based off of culture and style. When dancing there is not only movement within the body but within peoples faces, clothing, hair, etc. I believe both alone or layered, I will be able to create some unique images. I will pursue this project  in a variety of ways. I will reach out to many dances teams here at Penn State including whiplash, lionettes, and a few other teams. I hope to sit in on their practices as well as some of their performances. I will photograph the movement of their bodies, faces, hair, etc. Although dance is easily found within planned activity like dance teams, I find the most unique and meaningful dance is candid dancing. By candid dancing I mean non-dancers dancing at a party, because their happy, dancing in the rain spontaneously, and even “dancing” when their angry (kicking or stomping). These movements all create great and unique motion that in a sense capture dance for any reason. I believe the view will care to look at my work because these images will be much more than a simple image of dancing. These images are to portray the movements within dance and I will use these motions to create art that you must analyze and truly wonder what you’re looking at and why it occurred. I want the viewer to feel the emotions and vibe the form of dance gives off. I plan to edit each image in a way that incorporates the original culture, emotions, and essence the dancing environment originally gave off. I will specifically incorporate motion by following the dancers movements, and allow multiple dancers to contrast with each other and show the motion each of the have together. I will capture as a specific part of the dancer’s limbs move from the rest of their body. I will also do the same with their hair, props, clothing, and even lighting. I will also layer some of my images to create a contrast of movements by combining the same as well as different dances to portray how each dance and movement can create motion in different ways. Hopefully I will be able to tell a story with these different dances layered together.