Something you may not know about me is that I grew up spending a great deal of my time in dance studios. My mom took me to my first dance class when I was three years old, and classical ballet classes were soon to follow. Many of my childhood memories, from elementary school to high school, involve going to dance class and rehearsals, breaking in pointe shoes, performing onstage in The Nutcracker and other productions, and all the car rides in the passenger seat next to either my mom or my dad as they chauffeured me from school to dance to home. Rinse and repeat.

While I dabbled in other types of dance, taking classes in jazz, tap, modern, even flamenco and hip hop, ballet was where I felt most at home. I love to watch all kinds of dance, but ballet just grips my heart. Sometimes I find myself wondering where I might be if I had kept up with the demands of a continued life in dance, and quite often I miss performing. Oh, how I miss the stage.

Since beginning my career in photography I have come back to the idea of getting back in touch with that important part of my life, and combining two of my great passions. My favorite kinds of portraits capture movement and emotion, in general, so put some dance portraits in front of me and I truly get giddy. I have been wanting for so long to be able to get some real, talented ballet dancers in front of my camera, so when I connected with these two it felt like fate.

Jimena and Christian are both part of the Pacific Northwest Ballet Company here in Seattle, and they also happen to be a real-life, adorable couple. I’m not sure how many photographers can say that they get the best of both worlds this way, but I’m sure lucky that I can. It is not too often that these two get to be real dance partners, and they have never been able to have photos taken of them dancing together, so this was a special day for all of us.

We spent a glorious, if still chilly, early spring morning at Olympic Sculpture Park capturing them in some of their favorite partnering poses. I thought this would be the perfect location: sculptures to complement the lines of the dancers’ bodies, a striking backdrop of the Space Needle and the city, and scenic spots down by the water. Jimena and Christian definitely captured the awe of many passersby as they moved between poses. In between “takes,” they would practice their next move, often breaking into laughter and an unposed embrace. I could have spent the whole day like that.

I can’t get enough of them, and I don’t think I’m alone in that. These ballet portraits at Olympic Sculpture Park are just the beginning of my venture into dance photography.