Hello lovely readers/dancers!

A couple weeks ago, I received an email via Contact the Girl. If you ever debated about sending me a message, please know that I love getting emails from you guys!

This particular one was from Apolos Israel, a film student/photographer from Brooklyn, New York. He had just experienced his very first ballroom competition!

He was working for Paradigm at the Empire Dance Championships. He didn’t even know ballroom dance competitions existed before the gig! He shared with me that he isn’t usually a fan of dancing exhibitions, but he was “immediately enthralled by the pageantry.” He ended up spending all of his down time photographing the dancers or even just the dresses!

I couldn’t help but smile at his comments that he did his best to capture the competitors while they were on the dance floor but it was difficult because those dancers can really move!

A sample of the moments he captured:

It’s always fun to hear someone’s first impressions of ballroom. Competition especially can be “bling overload” for anyone (it was for me!). But it warmed my heart that this photographer could immediately see that there was so much more to ballroom beyond the pretty dresses. There is athleticism!

You can check out the photos he captured at the competition, as well as some of his non-ballroom photography, on his blog: http://phoebusphotography.tumblr.com/.