The Aerialist

My background as a gymnast and my relationship with the great folks at The Gymnastics Revolution here in West Palm Beach gets me access to some great subjects. Let me introduce you to Tina (AKA @miamiaerialist). Tina is a silk performer from Miami who comes up to TGR to train and teach private lessons on the silks. Tina performs at a couple of night clubs in Miami and also does some private events. If you want something really unique to spice up your event, make sure to contact Tina!



Tina was teaching the young Adriana, whom I had shot before as a gymnast and the two of them actually have a routine which they perform together. I thought that would be an amazing opportunity for me to shoot something I had never shot before. After some back and forth with all the parties involved, the shoot was scheduled!

The session was both exciting and challenging. Having never done this before, I had a good idea of what I wanted to do, but I knew that the nature of the silks, would pose some unique problems to solve. You can't just pick up the silks and move them for example, so your are kind of stuck with wherever they are set up. Also, the lighting would have to be set up pretty high up in order to get a sense of dimension by including some of the silk above and below the subject.

A little trial and error, and we were on our way to shoot.

I wanted to get a good dramatic shot of little Adriana on the silks by herself. The lack of wind inside the gym was a problem for what I had in mind. Thankfully Tina was able to "be the wind" if you will.

With her help I was able to get the shot I wanted.

We alternated between Tina and Adrianna getting some cool poses from each.

After getting a few individual poses, we shot some of the stuff they do together. It was awesome to see these two working together.

We then finished off the shoot with a few more individual shots of Tina in a different outfit. I immediately thought the shot had to be black & white. I think it's my favorite from the shoot.

During the shoot, I had a technical issue with my main light misfiring on the first shot. The flash was going to sleep to save on batteries. Because it was high up and somewhat inaccessible during the shoot, I would just fire a shot right before starting to shoot a new pose to wake up the flash. In those shots only the rim lights would fire. Most of the shots were just throw-aways, but I got lucky with this one. As the master Joe McNally would say, the "happy accident" shot.

I had a blast shooting with Tina and Adrianna! I also learned a lot about the aerial arts (silk, pole, and lyra) which are growing tremendously in popularity and are all amazing to watch. Thanks to Tina for opening up this door into her exciting world for me.