How To Make The Perfect GuestBook For Bharatanatyam Performance?
Certain moments in life are meant to be treasured all the way. While weddings, birth of a child or even birthdays are the most important ones, performing art is yet another milestone that clearly needs a proper documentation. While FotoZone has been creating impeccable and intriguing guest books for Bharatanatyam dancers, we thought we should give away some basic tips on how to create the Guestbooks for Bharatanatyam Arangetram.
Understand It’s Purpose
Firstly, it is important that the photographer or the designer understands the purpose of the guest book. It is a book that is beautifully designed – where the audience of the show writes their thoughts, feedback and wishes for the artists. This book is pretty much as important as documenting the event in terms of photo or videography. Hence the photographer should have a clear discussion with the designer of the guest book about its significance.
At The Photo Shoot
In order to get the best of the images for the guest book, it is best to visit the dancers during their rehearsal (where they will be at their full dance costume) and take stunning imageries of the performance. However, before even doing this, it is important to understand the story of the dance. Most of the Bharatanatyam dancers have a theme or take up stories that inspire them and convert that into thought provoking dance moments. As a photographer, it is important to identify such dance moments and photograph them appropriately. Also take photographs of the several hand and leg gestures – for the incredible Bharatanatyam dance is filled with innumerable of them! Show the photographs to your client so that you both are on the same page when it comes to choice of image that will be used on the guest book.
Finalise The Basics
While it sounds pretty simple, a guest book is literally many things put together. Firstly, you may have to check with the client if they would like to incorporate the story of the dance performance itself as a kind of a ‘foreword’ and also check with them if they would like to thank anyone in specific – for Bharatanatyam recognises and respects prayers and thankfulness to Gurus all the time. Therefore, have a clear understanding as to what will go in the front few pages and the last few pages, the colour scheme, the font and its size and also how many pages you are willing to set aside for the content and how many as guest pages. Also it is not wise to have pages significantly more than the guest list. Example: if the hall itself can accommodate only 100, there is no point in printing a guest book that has 200 pages!
Designing Part And Photo Layouts
The next important step is to design the guest book. It needs to be printed with the photographs taken during the rehearsal and there are several things to keep in mind here. Firstly, it cannot be filled with photographs! This is essentially a place to write and not a album. Go minimal with the photo prints on the guest book and have elements of the performance printed at the background in few pages. A perfect place to showcase the close up photographs of hand and leg moments would be in the guest book – so make the most of it. Choose the paper and the album cover that will match with the theme of the dance itself.
Above all, always remember that less is more!
