Through the Lens: A Career Photographing the Royal New Zealand Ballet

For nearly three decades, photographer Stephen A’Court has stood quietly in the stalls, capturing the magic of ballet in still frames. His images, intimate, dynamic, and astonishingly expressive, have become part of the Royal New Zealand Ballet’s visual history. In this conversation, Stephen reflects on his beginnings in dance photography, the challenges of the artform, and the singular joy of documenting the dancers in motion.

Stephen, A man in a plaid shirt smiles at the camera while standing indoors. In the background, several people are gathered and talking near a table. The date 2024.5.9 appears in orange text on the right side.

Stephen A’Court, September 2024.

Kia ora Stephen! Thank you so much for talking to us.
Do you remember the first time you photographed the Royal New Zealand Ballet? What was the production, and how did you get the gig?

I photographed dancer portraits beginning in the mid 1990s, and it took a while to progress to actual dance photography for RNZB. I know I photographed a production of The Firebird in November 1996, which was probably my first stage show. I think there was quite a break before I did it again, so maybe my first attempt was not so impressive. My clearest memory of an early stage show I photographed was Swan Lake in May 2002 and I think I’ve been consistent since then. I also took dance portraits on black & white film back in 1998 for the 45th Anniversary of the company, which had a fashion feel, shot in an empty restaurant with concrete floors and walls. The project was done with the assistance of a NZ fashion label, and the pictures which were published in a green soft cover book called The Royal New Zealand Ballet. The first time I ever came along to RNZB, in the 90s, the dance studios were in Lambton Quay, in a commercial building. (I had a client who was a RNZB sponsor, and I believe I came along to get some sort of public-relations photo with the sponsor’s board members in suits and some beautiful dancers in tutus.)

What drew you to dance photography in the first place?

Seeing it up close and in person, the day I walked into the RNZB studios. Before that day I don’t think I ever thought about dance but seeing it for the first time set something off in my brain. It’s been an obsession ever since, in a way which I can’t easily explain but then again, who can explain an obsession?

Going back even earlier, I started to photograph professional theatre on stage when I was a photography student at the beginning of the 1990s, just by talking my way in there with various theatre directors. I was so green I had no idea about the difficulty of what I was taking on! I muddled through, and got better, and I photographed literally hundreds of professional stage shows during the 90s and 2000s, which helped me develop the technical skills needed for shooting dance on stage. I have also worked consistently for 30 years at the New Zealand School of Dance – which of course is the official school of the RNZB – and amazingly for most of that period with long-serving NZSD artistic director Garry Trinder, with an emphasis on studio shooting with lighting, for which I am so grateful. I imagine all of this put me in line to be considered by RNZB for stage photography, over the couple if decades.

I had no background in dance, and from the start I’ve had to learn a lot about terms and technique. As much as possible I’ve tried to immerse myself in it. Today, if someone would let me, I’d photograph dancers all day every day. In my opinion, dance is the best and most wonderful thing in the world for a photographer to focus on.

What’s unique about photographing ballet compared to other subjects?

On stage, ballet is super-hard because it’s a combination of fast movement and low light, so it’s right at the edge of what’s possible for even the best lenses and auto-focus systems. Technically, I’m right on the limit. Add to that, I’m looking for key moments and expressions, and to click the shutter button just at the right moment of the dancer’s movement so that they at the peak of their leap or when they are right on balance. Dancers are constantly moving, they don’t hold poses, and my task is translating fluid movement into a satisfying static image caught at 1/1000th of a second. I love the combination of the technical & creative which shooting on stage offers. The dancers want to look like they are floating with grace, and they want to look athletic & strong, and there are conventions about leg-turnout and pointed feet that I just have to take into account. The difference between the right moment and the not-so-right moment can be a tiny fraction of a second. I shoot a lot of other work on stage – opera, theatre and the World of WearableArt – and while they have their own unique requirements, nothing gets close to the challenge of ballet on stage. The ballet company’s standards are very, very high, of course, when it comes to images which go out into the world of their people and of the shows. So, I really, really have to concentrate and work hard to get my pictures over the line. Nothing gets seen without first being approved!

Has your approach to photographing RNZB performances evolved over the years? If so, how?

The greatest change is the gear. When I first photographed performances, it was on film cameras which limited me to 36 shots per roll of film, so I shot slowly. I used two cameras and when I filled up one roll of film, I hit a button to get it to rewind, while I continued shooting on the second camera. I tried to pick a moment to load a fresh roll into camera one, and rinse and repeat every time I finished a 36-shot roll of film. I had no idea what I got until the film was processed the next day. There were maybe dozen rolls for a full-length ballet. It seems weird to even consider it today! Since about 2007 it’s been all digital and today’s cameras are incredibly capable, especially auto-focus. My cameras detect that they are photographing people, and they will lock on and track my subject, giving priority to my subject’s eyes. Which is all amazing because I’m shooting with the aperture wide open and there’s a very thin plane of sharp focus in every image. Today, with technology on my side, and with a bit of experience, I can relax a bit and have confidence that I will actually get something useful from this photo session. That’s only taken 20 years!

A woman in a green checkered dress stands beside a giant teacup containing a man in a green shirt, with a large cluster of red balloons hanging above them against a colorful, whimsical backdrop.

The Ryman Healthcare Season of The Wizard of Oz. Dancers Lucy Green and William Fitzgerald. Photo credit: Stephen A’Court. COPYRIGHT ©Stephen A’Court

Wellington, NZ. 03.05.2016

Are there any dancers or productions that stand out as memorable highlights for you?

I tend to love the show I’m working on the best of all. I’ve seen some amazing shows.

Perhaps one dancer who stood out for me was Abigail Boyle. I watched all her work at RNZB, throughout a 13-year career. To my eye Abigail had a regal quality about her in everything she did, on stage and off, and I was completely in awe.  I saw and photographed her last performances with the RNZB in Artemis Rising in early 2019, which was perhaps the most moving show I witnessed.

Another highlight was the utter relief of RNZB’s first show back after COVID, Venus Rising, the triple bill of November 2022, on stage after four Covid postponements! (I’m pretty sure I photographed a dress rehearsal the night before opening night, in 2020, but the tour had to be cancelled within those 24 hours.) Somewhere in my archive there’s a whole version of the show which has been photographed but never performed publicly with that cast. ‘Aurum’, by Alice Topp, is possibly the most beautifully staged show I’ve seen in my life.

Watching Peter Pan with my daughter Sylvie (who was pretty much named after a ballet) in late 2009 was a huge highlight. Almost-four-year-old Sylvie – who was dressed for the occasion in her own tutu – loved Peter flying through the air, the beautiful Tinkerbell and Wendy, and the hilarious Sir Jon Trimmer playing crazy Captain Hook, but most of all Sylvie loved the peppermints and fizzy drink at half time. She and I went to more ballets, and every time she had to have the same brand of mints at half time.

Just a note about the unforgettable Sir Jon Trimmer, who was always so kind to me. I was no one in the grand scheme of things, but he always called out to me when he saw me in the studios. He was an incredible man and a beautiful artist in the way he carried himself and lived his life.

How do you capture the energy and emotion of live performance in a still image?

There is a contradiction between dance performance and a still photo, which I’m very aware of. First thing to say about that is: I’m trying very hard to capture moments where the dancer is travelling, and where it’s clear what direction they are moving, so there’s a sense even in the still photo that they are on their way from one place to another. And secondly, I think it’s easy enough to justify the value of a still image: dance movement can be so fleeting and complex, involving maybe several bodies, with every limb playing a part, that it’s literally impossible for the viewer to see and appreciate the amazing detail of what’s happening right in front of them. A still image might not show a phrase of movement, but it’s a trade-off in a sense, where the still image can capture perfect moments which are impossible to really see otherwise, if you are an audience member sitting in the theatre.

Capturing the energy and emotion of live performance is made possible by the artists of the company, and what they bring to the stage. The RNZB leading company dancers have this expressive quality that’s magical, which they have refined over years, and they act their roles as well as dance them. So, I look for their expressions, and where their eyes are looking. When all this unfolds in front of me, I hope to be sufficiently aware to capture what I can of it, with the camera.

Can you talk us through your process when you’re preparing to shoot a ballet?

I frequently come in to photograph studio rehearsals when the dancers are working with the choreographer, without all the lights and costumes. I get to see them work over key moments and they repeat portions several times, which helps me get a bit of the ballet into my head. In production week, when the dancers are rehearsing on stage, I often come along to an early tech rehearsal just to watch, without a camera, again just to get some elements into memory. I usually photograph two rehearsals, with differing casts, on the two nights just before opening night. These evenings I might shoot 4,000 raw frames at each rehearsal, and I work through the night to get that down to about 2,000 frames to put in front of the RNZB artistic director by mid-morning the following day, in an online gallery. The artistic director and the choreographer might approve up to 150 images by midday or so, which I edit lightly and supply as a large high-resolution image-files to the marketing team before the show opens that evening!

A ballet dancer in a flowing white dress gracefully leans back as she is held by a performer wearing a donkey head mask and tan costume, set against a whimsical, blue-lit stage backdrop.

Tonia Looker as Titania and Harry Skinner as Bottom in the Royal New Zealand Ballet’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Photo credit: Stephen A’Court. COPYRIGHT ©Stephen A’Court

Wellington, NZ. 19.08.2015

How much do you rely on instinct versus planning when capturing a moment on stage?

I’m aware of key moments, for sure, and I’m looking for those, but when it comes down to it shooting the stage show is almost all instinct & anticipation. With classic movements, like leaps and lifts, I can’t simply wait to see the moment and then click the shutter. I’ll always be too late. I need to anticipate the movement, and follow the dancer, and feel for the moment the shutter needs to be clicked. I hope I’m explaining that well enough. Classical ballet movements often follow convention, and movements are often repeated in a phrase, which I can detect as I’m watching. The music will sometimes show me the way. If I see a little phrase, I might know that it’s about to be repeated, so I can anticipate that that pose is coming again within the next few seconds. There are classic poses which I can recognise now, with experience, so say if I see an arabesque shape I know that’s something to capture! With contemporary dance, the classic poses are out the window, and the shapes the dancers make are more important than capturing perfect technique, so that’s way freer for me as a photographer. But then contemporary style is less full of convention and is harder to anticipate as a result. Can I just say, a performance is filled with many thousands of photo-worthy moments and capturing them is so fleeting and tricky that I miss many of them. I have a little talk to myself during the show to tell myself to relax, and breathe, and concentrate.

Is there a particular moment in every performance that you always try to capture?

It depends a little on the show. A classic show like say Giselle has moments that every ballet-goer is familiar with. But even then, the ballet company’s marketing team are probably looking for something fresh, and not a moment that’s been seen many times before. In general, what I’m looking for are the moments the dancers are floating without apparent effort, defying gravity in a sense, or when they are at that perfect moment in the air when they have stopped going up but they have not started to come down. I’m looking for moments of maximum strength & athleticism. The dancers want their limbs to look long, so I pick those moments! I am looking for emotion or connection between the dancers. When maybe they look into each other’s eyes, or one rests a head on the other’s chest. Imagine there was a piece in the ballet where one dancer reaches out to almost touch another dancer on the face. Oh my, that is the moment! Every RNZB ballet has its share of moments which are achingly beautiful or meaningful, and I try so hard to be ready for them.

 

A man and woman dance together against a blue background. The woman wears a yellow dress and is spinning, her hair flying. The man, in a white shirt and vest, supports her from behind, both focused on their movement.

The Royal New Zealand Ballet presents My Brilliant Career, choreographed by Cathy Marston, 30 April – 1 June 2025.
Pictured Guest Artist Victor Estévez and Soloist Katherine Minor.

Photo credit: Stephen A’Court.

What’s your biggest technical challenge when shooting ballet?

Low light and fast movement! That’s it, really. Oh, and tracking the dancer and keeping them within my frame and in focus. I must use a fast shutter speed to get a sharp image without motion blur; somewhere above 1/500th of a second and often 1/1000th of a second. That imposes some severely high ISO settings even with a wide open f2.8 aperture. I have handy ways of dealing with the image-noise that high ISO imposes, most often ISO 6400 to 12,500, but we are sometimes really at the limits of what the sensor can handle. All for the sake of a fast shutter speed. Some ballets are light-filled, and the dancers move sedately, but who am I kidding this hardly ever happens and it’s much more likely to be super dark and we have groups of dancers rushing about in the shadows! (Think portions of The Firebird in 2025.)

What makes a truly great dance photograph, in your opinion?

No one thing. It’s obvious to say a picture which celebrates the human form and what it’s capable of. But beyond that, where the dancer is not just a shape or an object, but where I sense what’s going on in the dancer’s head is translated into what their body is showing.

I’m looking at dance photography from around the world all the time. Some of the best or most satisfying photographs I’ve seen capture a moment which shows a dancer on the way from one place to somewhere else, which overcome the limitation of the still image to a degree. I love images where a dancer is perfectly balanced, let’s say on pointe, with the body pulled up high right over their supporting leg. But I think I like even more pictures where the pose still looks good but a fraction of a second after this, when they have begun to move beyond that peak moment, and the viewer has a sense of them falling gracefully. (It’s possibly hard to explain this in words, without examples.)

Have there been moments where an accidental shot turned out to be one of your favourites?

I often get unintended shots. I can’t think of any which have become favourites, but here’s a funny hair-related one from a recent show:

A group of ballet dancers in white tutus perform on stage, poised in elegant positions with arms extended, against a dark, wooded backdrop in a night scene from Swan Lake.

Swan Lake by the Royal New Zealand Ballet, May 2024. Photo credit: Stephen A’Court.

What have you learned from photographing dancers and performances over the years?

Speaking generally dancers are some of the nicest people on the planet to work with. (Outside of dance, I get to work with all sorts of people, so it’s easy for me to compare.) Dance training gives them all a mental and physical discipline, so they have noticeable self-control. Dance performance prizes co-operation, and dancers are invariably polite. Even under pressure. Dancers are self-motivated and they go ahead & prepare themselves without being told to. Parents, go ahead and send your kids to dance class.

I’ve often viewed professional dancers as ‘thoroughbreds’, not 100 percent like the rest of the human population, in a good way. Everyone involved in the wider world of performing arts are creating something the world could do with more of – something beautiful and uplifting. It’s easy to see the world as filled with chaos & strife, but in dance-world it’s also possible to see it filled with good people doing good things.

How do you stay inspired creatively after so many years in the industry?

I have zero problem staying inspired and motivated. I cannot get enough. At RNZB we have truly world class dancers and artistic staff, performing fantastically mixed programme of dance. I am incredibly lucky to be involved at all, and I appreciate it every day I’m in the building.

In fact, I’m always thinking of ways I can get more photography time with dancers, even outside of commissioned work for RNZB. I’m developing plans for personal work with professional dancers, to add more camera-time to my life. I’d love to shoot dancers in outdoor settings, but Wellington weather is not particularly cooperative for that sort of work. But I have special outdoor lighting so maybe someone will take the weather-risk with me. I have an assistant – a professionally trained dancer – who will art direct for me. We are ready to go.

What role do you think photography plays in preserving and promoting the art of ballet?

It plays a central role, as I believe it does for all performance art. Once the show closes and all the costumes and props have been packed away, imagery both still and video is the only tangible thing left. It provides a record, hopefully for generations, of performers at their peak, which exists nowhere else.

I have photographs of professional dancers with stellar careers from their days as a student. I have photographs of dancers who have moved away from New Zealand. I have beautiful photographs of dancers at the peak of their career who have retired, and even of dancers and choreographers who have sadly passed away. Some photographs will become more precious as time goes by, so long as there is a way of archiving them.

If you could give one piece of advice to aspiring dance photographers, what would it be?

I would say: the dance world is wide open to new participants, and there is hardly an abundance of specialist dance photographers. To photographers who are not dancers, I’d say collaborate with people who can art-direct alongside you and give dancers and choreographers most of the say during and after the session. The world of dance operates with etiquette and a bunch of subtle unwritten rules, so don’t approach it like it’s a form of portraiture or fashion where you can exclusively impose your own vision.

 

Stephen's Favourite Images from his Career

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