Originally posted June 22, 2014 at grantfriedman.com. Reposted with permission.

Back in January, I had the opportunity to shoot some behind the scenes photos for the Stephen Petronio Dance Company, during their photo shoot with Sarah Silver. Ever since, I’ve been following the Stephen Petronio Dance Company pretty closely, but I’ve never actually seen them perform.

So when I heard that they would be performing at Bryant Park, in New York City, I really wanted to go, and if I could, shoot photos of the performance, as well. On the day of the performance, Sarah was nice enough to let them know that I was coming, and they arranged for me to shoot some photos backstage.

Dance, or anything that involves motion, is a lot of fun to shoot, I love the ability to stop the motion, and capture the drama of that particular moment. For this shoot, because I wasn’t sure how far away from the stage I would be, I brought my 70-200mm 2.8 lens, I figured that it would give me the most flexibility to zoom in and out while the dancers moved around the stage.

During the performance, I decided to zoom in and shoot as much of the interaction between the dancers as possible, and when I could, step back to grab a wider shot. Because of that, I think I was able to not only capture the performance of the Petronio dancers, but also, their athleticism, as well.

—Grant Friedman