Photo courtesy of Hope Spears

Dance senior Ryan wood posses for dance senior Hope Spears’ photo. This photo is well known by Dreyfoos students as it can be found in Seeds. Spears won Seeds’ Collaboration Award her sophomore year. This photograph also awarded Spears’ with the “Dancers Among Us” award by Jordan Matter.

Dancers wish to intrigue their audience in a beautiful tale of strength and grace. For dance senior Hope Spears, however, intriguing the audience in a moment is not enough. Spears wants her audience to enjoy the elegant poses and curving maneuvers of dancers wherever they go. With this dream in mind, Spears combined the two arts she loved the most: dance and photography.

“I chose dance as my focus because I’m a dancer,” Spears said. “You see all these dance photos on Instagram or Facebook and they inspire me to do similar things. Plus, if I’m working with a dancer and they ask me [a dance phrased question], I can answer them in dance terms.”

Spears’ own love for dance helped inspire her to combine her love for photography with her art at Dreyfoos. Although she has been behind the camera for six years, Spears recently began her own business, Hope Spears Photography, two years ago. In this short amount of time, Spears has won seven local and national awards for her photos. These awards are the result of her impeccable professionalism and work ethic.

“I usually have people contact me through Facebook or email,” Spears said. “Depending on what they want, I either meet them at a certain location or I set up my photo studio with my lights and paper backdrop. Each session usually lasts about two hours. Because it’s a small business, price varies depending on what my client is asking for.”

Through her photo shoots, Spears has learned about the creativity of dance and photography. By opening her photo lens, Spears has opened herself to a new world, one where dance can be taken outside the confining walls of the theatre or studio and into any place she desires.

“My favorite part of this business is the creativity aspect of it. Especially with dancers, I love all the possibilities that I can explore,” Spears said. “For example, I did a photoshoot where I took some dancers to a baseball field where we were all in tutus. The pictures came out really cool.”

Outside her ventures in the dance studio, Spears has developed a growing love for nature photography. With her focus on dance, and her dream to continue dancing as a professional career, Spears will continue pursing a life in front of the camera, as well as one behind it.

“I’m going to try to pursue dance whether it be commercial or concert,” Spears said.  “If that doesn’t work, I want to work with national geographic.”

As for now, Spears is fortunate enough to continue pursuing both her dreams through an ever-growing stream of opportunity.

“I got accepted to go with National Geographic on a student expedition to Montana this summer, where I will be spending 12 days in Yellowstone National Park doing nothing but photography.”