"First Position": Young dancers at the audition

EVERY DAY PHOTOGRAPHERS AROUND THE WORLD looking for new ways to tell stories or to capture what we previously did not notice. We choose interesting photo projects and ask their authors what they wanted to say. This week we are publishing the project “First Position” by London-based photographer Sophie Harris-Taylor, who captured the experiences of young ballet dancers a couple of minutes before an important audition.

My close friend is the director of the ballet school, I went there for auditions for several years to make press photos for the school. Every time, looking at young dancers, I was delighted and thought that it would be so interesting to make their portraits and learn more about their lives - it seemed so unreal everything that happens in the walls of the school and the guys themselves. So the idea of the project “First Position” was born, for which I photographed young ballet dancers a few minutes before an important audition. These young men are real professionals, they have been training hard for many years, but exactly at this very moment they lose control of the situation and self-control. In ballet, for men in particular, endurance and the ability to apply themselves are of great importance; when shooting the boys before audition, I tried to catch a rare moment when they could see their vulnerability.

At first I photographed for the project and the girls too, but in the end I decided to focus only on the boys - in their portraits the tension of the situation and the reaction of the characters themselves are visible with the naked eye. All the heroes of the "First Position" are from 8 to 19 years old, most of them have been practicing ballet all their lives and have come to enroll in a ballet school instead of a regular one. Some of the boys are not so selfless: they attended ballet classes a couple of times a week in their hometown, and now decided to try their hand at a more serious level.

I myself have never practiced dancing, but I have always admired how the body of ballet dancers looks, both women and men. It can be seen that they are very strong, but when it comes to dancing, this power is transformed into the smoothness and ease with which they flit around the scene. It is amazing that people are ready to devote their whole lives to achieve such physical fitness. In general, I treat with great respect and admiration the heroes of this project who decided to devote themselves to ballet at such a young age.

When I was a teenager, I always rushed for friends with a disposable camera in my hands: at that time there were no cell phones with cameras, no social networks to upload photos to. Even then, photography became my hobby. Later I entered the university where I studied the history of art and photography, developed my own style of shooting and favorite topics. Most of the time I take portraits, I like to find their essence in people and pull their surface to the surface, show beauty in vulnerability, explore human obsession, attachment to home, perception of appearance and just daily life.