Aubrey Billups // Maui, HI
Roll #200 Contact Sheet
This is roll number two hundred in this project, frame #12. When I first photographed a ballerina, way back in January of 2018, I never imagined I would have this project where I photographed ballerinas around the world. When I started intentionally photographing ballerinas for this cohesive project, I never even began to fathom that I would get to 200 Ilford HP5 rolls, accounting to more than 175 different and unique ballerinas.
Audrey has become a sort of muse for me in this project, quite accidentally. Audrey herself is a photographer, and was born in San Antonio, my hometown and where I reside. However, we only connected via a friend of Audrey that knew of my project. Once we connected, we clicked, and I photographed her on 4x5 large format film - another lost medium. I told her that my sister lived in Hawaii, and if I ever head out there to visit her, it would be fun to photograph her for this ballet project.
Fast-forward a year - 14 rolls photographed later, and we’re chatting over coffee in San Antonio about how fun it would be to do a proper shoot in Maui, as our last shoot (which resulted in one of my favorite images ever) was a blazing 7 rolls in 14 hours, a one day trip to Maui; being rushed sure is the story of of this project. Just like that, I looked up a flight, and it was inexpensive enough that I was able to purchase it without thinking twice.
This time in Maui, I photographed a total of 6 rolls with Audrey, two a day, plus a rest day. Not rushing makes the biggest difference on my mental-creative energy. True to form, however, on this 200th roll, we were rushed. An overcast day, sunset was primed for 5:42pm, and we began photographing at 5:01pm. Normally, I would push my HP5 two stops to 1600 (not my preference), and even then be subjugated to 1/60th at f/4. However, having my trusty Peak Design travel tripod (which I cannot recommend enough, and which I had purchased for my previous Mauian trip), I was able to shoot HP5 normally at box speed, and expose at 1/8th of a second without any worry of motion blur. That mirror release on the Hasselblad came into handy more than once.
This project has evolved over the course of those first 200 rolls. I am so very grateful to the many ballerinas who have trusted me to photograph them with this by-gone medium that is analog film photography. I’m especially grateful to the ballerinas - many just like Audrey - who are willing to allow me to get quirky. Audrey’s love for hats jibes perfectly with my love of the anonymous ballerina, focusing solely on their beautiful craft. This is an image I might have admired in January of 2018, but would never have thought to have exposed, and I’m very proud of that growth.
December 3, 2021
