I find the ballroom dancers interesting because of their clothes, makeup, and in many ways their still imperfect and immature body and mind that the teenage dancer represents – put in a world searching for perfection. It is a world where the right size and measures, the right positions, grown up demands and conservatism rules. It is about basic training in being a perfect adult-a perfect gentleman or a real lady princess.

But as with most teenagers, the teenage imperfection and diversity breaks trough even the most perfect surface here and there. Though they try, they can’t hide that they are teenagers. And it’s these collisions, I am looking for. Technically I went to the competitions and used the backgrounds available at the places. I didn’t bring anything but camera and ring flash.

Because my pictures are very simple, I needed a simple light setting and I like the look of the ring flash. It is easy to use and at the same time gives no chance to manipulate. It is a raw light without shadows, and I find it very honest: everything is exposed and the dancers can’t hide in the shadow. For the photographer, the ring light can’t be used to make up atmosphere other than the atmosphere that comes from the dancer her or himself. Sometimes when I was photographing in almost darkness, the dancers got red eyes. Although I work with Photoshop, I deliberately did not correct the red eyes. Actually, I used Photoshop to make sure the imperfections were visible and not to smooth them out.