My eighth candidate for Project Exodus; Tony Yap, an accomplished dancer, director, choreographer and visual artist. Born in Malaysia, Tony Yap has been away for 35 years, living and working in Australia. His critically acclaimed works in dancing has taken him to many countries and have seen him collaborated with dancers from around the world.
Tony has received numerous nominations and awards including his solo work The Decay of the Angel which won him a Green Room Award for Best Male Dancer. He’s currently back in Malaysia to prepare for Melaka Art Festival 2011, scheduled to take place in November this year. The very same Melaka Art Festival which concluded in November 2010 was a successful hit.
Tony Yap who runs the Tony Yap Company, formerly known as Mixed Company, was at the office of E-Plus Entertainment Productions, the event company charged with managing and organising the Melaka Art Festival 2011.
A tall lanky guy who looks rather muscular, his physique spoke of him as a dancer indeed. He was very friendly and always smiling, whose eyes would lit up whenever he talks about his works and dancing. I looked around the small office for a suitable place to shoot.
A bright red wall on the far side of the office next to the entrance caught my attention. I needed something simple. As I was in a rush, I decided to just use the background. I also thought the fiery red tone would best portray Tony as an energetic dancer. Coupled with a serious and pensive look which I told him to put on, the resulting image was something I’m more than happy with.
The setup shot below showed an improvised Manfrotto light stand used as a boom by my “voice-activated light stand” assistant. I had it placed above Tony’s head, slightly forward and away from his face to ensure his face catches the soft wrap-around feathered light, instead of bearing the full brunt of the light. This setup also gives the “snooted” look where only his upper torso and face are lit by this key light, while his lower torso goes dark (hence the vignette effect; partly also due to the background separation light too).
I also arranged for a second strobe on a light stand right behind/beneath him, zoomed at 105mm to hit the wall, thus separating him from the background. I shot with a 24-70 L IS, at ISO 100, 1/200 sec, f/8, using the 7D’s on-camera flash as on-axis fill, which also doubles up as a trigger for both the umbrella-ed key and background strobes.