I have been covering the Olympic flame lighting ceremony in Ancient Olympia for two decades, and had always wanted to do a behind-the-scenes photo story of these performers.
My recent assignments have included wars and other disturbing news stories, so I counted myself lucky to be able to capture this image of dancers who would participate in an act of peace and culture for the world’s biggest sports event.
I took the picture during a break in a dress rehearsal at the Athens velodrome, as the dancers checked mobile phone videos of their routine to see whether they had made a mistake. They’re wearing the new dresses introduced this year that are meant to reproduce the swirling capitals and elongated fluting of ancient Greek Ionic columns
I used a Sony Alpha 1 camera with a Sony 50mm f/1.2 G Master lens, and shot the picture as a RAW uncompressed file. My settings were 1/30-sec. shutter speed, f/4.5, and 400 ISO.
