Artistic Lighting in Dance: Master Class
The Pas de Deux Photo Artistic Lighting Master Class is designed to provide instruction from leaders Francisco Estevez, Ron McKinney and Emily Brunner, as well as give attendees the opportunity to practice these techniques with dancers.
Ron, Emily and Francisco will spend time demonstrating their own personal style of creating artistic studio images with dancers. While much of the focus will be on their unique lighting styles, they will also be demonstrating how they work with dancers to get the best poses. We will also talk about lights and modifiers that we like to use.
They will also spend some time talking about their marketing to dancers, and the packages they sell to dancers.
Attendees will have multiple opportunities to practice what they’ve learned with photo shoots throughout the weekend with an instructor there to help with lighting, or to help with working with the dancer, as needed.
March 8 & 9, 2025
Crystal Lake, Illinois (20 miles northwest of Chicago)
Master Class Schedule
Saturday
9:00-11:00 am. Francisco, Emily and Ron demonstrate their styles with lighting.
11:00-12:30 pm. Attendees practice shoots with 15-minute intervals.
12:30-1:30 pm. Lunch provided at studio.
1:30-2:30 pm. Gel lighting demonstration
2:30-5:00 pm. Attendees practice shoots with 15-minute intervals.
Sunday
9:00-10:30 am Marketing and Sales – Emily, Ron and Francisco
10:30-11:00 am Using Fog – demo by Ron
11:00 am -12:30 pm Attendees practice shoots with 15-minute intervals
12:30-1:30 pm Lunch provided at studio.
1:30-4:00 pm Attendees practice shoots with 15-minute intervals.
Master Class Leaders
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Francisco Estevez
Francisco has a long background as a professional ballet dancer, having danced professionally since 2008 in companies in New York, Boston, Barcelona and Denver. His passion for dance photography began when shooting performance photography in 2012 while dancing at Barcelona Ballet. After a few years of photographing his profession, he continued his studies as a photographer and began to build a now established brand as a dance and portrait photographer. His understanding of dance as an art form gives him a unique perspective for photographing people and movement and he has developed a unique technique for communicating dance through photography. He is based in Denver, Colorado and continues to work as a principal dancer, teacher and creative lead at the CandidlyCreated studio where he and his team create inspiring images for their vast client base.
Emily Brunner
Ron McKinney
Emily Brunner opened her dance and portrait photography studio in the western suburbs of Philadelphia in 2016. Since then she has had the opportunity to work with many fabulous companies, schools and individual dancers - to show them all just how beautiful and inspiring they truly are. Since 2016 she has also had the opportunity to purchase countless pointe shoes, hairpins and intermission snacks as the mother to 2 Dancing Daughters and 1 Spectator Son. She knows that you’re probably here for the dance photography, but if you need advice on the important matters of being a Dance Parent, like how to afford all of the dance tuition and costumes (hint, it involves dance photography), she’s your gal!
Ron has been photographing dancers since 2007. When he opened his first studio in 2016 in the Chicago suburbs, he began honing his lighting skills to create artistic images of dancers. He uses the artistic lighting on location outdoors, as well as in the studio set against white or black backgrounds, or anything in between black and white.