Powerful Dance Portraits Capture the Elegance and Intensity of the Human Body in Motion

Moscow-based photographer Alexander Yakovlev has an amazing talent for conveying the elegant, refined energy of dancers. His stunning studio portraits capture dancers mid-pose, exuding a grace and power that is fortified by the primarily black and white aesthetic and clean scene compositions. Yakovlev's photography provides viewers the opportunity to fully appreciate the majesty of a moving human body frozen in time, each image radiating an intangible element that makes it hard to look away.

The artist, who had previously studied law in Russia, has found that his true passion lies in dance photography. With this series, known as The Mirages, the artist incorporates the simple element of flour, allowing his subjects to work with the fine powder in artistic ways. His lens captures each dancer's movements as the bleached grains cling to and accentuate the lines of the human body, not to mention the way the flour floats in mid-air, mapping out the paths of motion of each limb. His collection is explosive and expressive, each image stunning in its own right, adding a visual sense of intensity within each frame.