Jacob’s Pillow Dance – Looking Forward To Summer 2014

by Christopher Duggan

Every June, my wife, dance videographer Nel Shelby, and I move back into our cabin in the Berkshires to spend the summer filming and photographing the incredible artists who perform at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. The Pillow’s 10-week run includes 2 new mainstage dance performances and 4 free outdoor performances on Inside/Out stage every week. We keep very busy and have a blast.

This summer, I’m excited to photograph some familiar dance companies – Doug Elkins, Dance Theatre of Harlem, LeeSaar, Mark Morris Dance Group, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Dance Heginbotham, Yin Yue Dance Company, Dorrance Dance, Trey McIntyre Project, Reggie Wilson, Aspen Santa Fe Ballet…I’ve had the pleasure of photographing all of these dance artists at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in past seasons, and they are all coming back to the Pillow this summer.

My dance photography for Jacob’s Pillow is meant to preserve these performances for years to come. The Pillow has a rich history and I love that I get to be a part of capturing it. I love photographing the artists at the Pillow so much that I started a passion project two summers ago. My Natural Light Studio is an outdoor studio where I collaborate with the dancers at the Pillow and make portraits.

I write a blog post every Friday with photos from the week’s dance performances and sneak peeks at new portraits in my Natural Light Studio. I’d love to share my photos from these 10 weeks with you. Sign up for my dance emails and you’ll get a photo and a note from me every Friday, June through August.

Here’s a look at photos we’ve made together before. I can’t wait to capture more this season.

Contributor Christopher Duggan is a wedding and dance photographer in New York City, the Berkshires and beyond. Duggan has been the Festival Photographer for Jacob’s Pillow Dance since 2006. In this capacity, and as a respected New York-based dance photographer, he has worked with renowned choreographers and performers of international acclaim as well as upstarts in the city’s diverse performance scene.

He photographs dancers in the studio and in performance, for promotional materials, portraits and press, and he often collaborates with his wife, Nel Shelby, and her Manhattan-based dance film and video editing company Nel Shelby Productions (nelshelby.com). Together, they have documented dance at performances from New York City to Vail International Dance Festival.

Christopher Duggan Photography also covers the finest wedding venues in the Metropolitan and Tri-State areas, in Massachusetts and the Berkshires, and frequently travels to destination weddings.

His photographs appear in The New York Times, The Huffington Post, The Knot, Destination I Do, Photo District News, Boston Globe, Financial Times, Dance Magazine, and Munaluchi Bridal, among other esteemed publications and popular dance and wedding blogs. One of his images of Bruce Springsteen was added to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and his dance photography has been exhibited at The National Museum of Dance and Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival.

His Natural Light Studio (http://www.christopherduggan.com/portfolio/natural-light-studio-jacobs-pillow-photography/) at Jacob’s Pillow is his most ambitious photography project to date – check out his blog to see more portraits of dance artists in his pop-up photo studio on the Pillow grounds.