It's been 2 years since I've shot any dance, so maybe that's long enough. Here are a few photos from when I sat in on Donald McKayle's rehearsal last week. Dance Visions 2007 Feb 7-11 at the Irvine Barclay Theatre UCI Box Office

More photos...

I've shot dance for years, it's the therapeutic salve I applied after running my software company for 15 years; I was ready for a major change and there I was living in New York, just 2 blocks from LaGuardia High School for the Performing Arts, a public school. They needed a volunteer to shoot the dancers. They needed head shots for their portfolios, then once I was there, they needed ballet poses for their college applications, then while I was there one day I brought my camera to a rehearsal; I was hooked. I knew of Degas and the beautiful images of dancers he captured; that was inspiring.

Talk about immediate gratification! Shoot a dancer today and return tomorrow with the photo that the dancer will appreciate, the faculty and staff will love and the dancer's mother will die for. In a matter of months my photos were plastered all over the school.

I was a computer guy shooting with the latest Nikon digitals which cost $5k at the time. Color images were rare until that time because film was limiting when shooting the stage, but for a digital camera the tungsten stage lights were just another white balance adjustment. The photos got attention outside the school and when word spread there was a free photographer shooting dance the invitations to concerts outside the school started coming.

Once I had a modest portfolio I brought it to Donald McKayle at UCI; I cold-called him and he returned the call. Years later now I like to joke, "you just let me walk in" and his rebuttal is "it sounded like a good deal." That began a period of three years as a bi-coastal dance photographer, what fun. I'd shoot in NY for a week or more and when it was time for a change I'd return home and shoot at UCI. The travel wore me down and I eventually settled in southern California. I ended my involvement with LaGuardia by publishing three years of photos in Dreams of Grace.

I always liked that dance photographers entered humbly through the back stage door, but now I've graduated to the Claire Trevor School of the Arts Dean's Leadership Council; the Dance department really needs a fund raiser more than a photographer. So for the past few years I'd say to friends that it's too difficult to balance a photography interest with the business of Tech Coast Angels, but for the next week I'm gonna give it a try.

See photos from my Dec 2005 exhibit in Amsterdam.