An objective of photography, at least for me, it to convey an emotion in the image. You want the image to be well put together of course, as clearly a blurry image will go down in flames.

So you have the technical part of it. But the image must also have interest. Is the background interesting? Subject too? What about the light and the shadows?

The gentle resignation of the dancer is what puts it all together.

But the what makes an image a great image is the emotion conveyed by the subject. Many times this is associated with the facial expression and this is so important in many images, and trumps other elements. But here, the form of the body is the focus.

In this image, we worked to get all of the elements put together in this way. This takes trial an error of different poses, lighting tweaks, and collaborative ideas to make it happen.

The strength in this pose is amazing. But it needed something more. I subtlety directed the tilt of head and there it was: The gentle resignation of the dancer is what puts it all together.

Strength and grace.