Photographer Sonja Clark

Hi, I'm Sonja. I've spent 18 years learning what dancers need from a camera.

I started shooting for Indianapolis School of Ballet back in 2009, just a year or two after the school opened — photographing their students and their performances. When Indianapolis Ballet, the professional company, launched in 2018, I started photographing professionals for the first time, and it changed everything. It was a whole new world. I started going to dance photography workshops and digging deeper into the craft so I could grow alongside the school and the company.

Dance is genuinely the most difficult thing I photograph — and that's exactly what makes it fun. I love getting in the weeds with dancers in the studio, where every small detail matters. We shoot tethered, so we can see the images as we go, and sometimes that means capturing the same position — an attitude, say — from several different angles, because what reads beautifully on stage doesn't always read the same way on camera.

That kind of work needs the right space, which is why I opened my studio in Broad Ripple with sprung floors and room to actually move — somewhere we'd have the freedom to be creative and the safety to push further, physically, than a typical studio allows.

As my focus deepened, I branched out beyond ballet into other styles of dance, too. Now I work with dance companies and schools well beyond Indianapolis and dancers from all over the country.

Greg's a huge part of that. He's a professional dancer and a ballet teacher — I met him years ago when he was a company member of Indianapolis Ballet, on a photoshoot, and I was genuinely impressed by him. That turned into the collaboration we still have today. He works alongside me on shoots, coaching in real time on line, extension, and technique.

And the work speaks for itself at this point. I'm the photographer behind Indianapolis Ballet's performances, marketing images, dancer portraits, and headshots. I shoot performances for Dance Kaleidoscope, Indiana's longest-running professional contemporary dance company, and I photograph several dance schools in central Indiana. I'm involved with Indy Dance Council too, which keeps me connected to dancers and companies across every style in the city.

My work has also been featured in Pointe Magazine, Indianapolis Monthly, Northside Indy Magazine, Sophisticated Living, NUVO, and other publications and blogs along the way.

When I'm not in the studio, there's a good chance I'm out with my bees — I'm also a beekeeper. I've got three amazing young-adult kids, and hiking and traveling with them fills up the rest of my time.

So — whether you're a professional dancer who needs images that match the work you've put in, a student dancer marking a season or a milestone, a studio owner who'd love a picture day that doesn't land on your plate, or a company that needs a photographer for performances and marketing: I'd genuinely love to hear what you're looking for.