Dancer: Kiira Schmidt photographed for Broadway.com's Gotta Dance!, styled by David Withrow, Hair and Makeup by Ariel Vega. Photographed at 3rd Ward.

It's not surprising that Matthew Murphy creates amazing dance photography. He's graced the same stages as the dancers that he now captures with his lens, and he's exercised the same extraordinary dedication and drive that made him a great dancer to become an equally virtuosic photographer.

"I spent my entire adolescence training to become a professional ballet dancer," Murphy says. At 17 that devotion paid off when he became a member of the American Ballet Theatre, one of the world's leading ballet companies. A few years later illness forced him to retire from dancing, but he soon picked up a DSLR and found a complementary passion. "The similarities between art forms were apparent to me from the start," he says. "They are both about exploring space and people through movement and light. My work as a photographer focuses a lot on identity and movement, whether physical or emotional." 

He may be behind the camera rather than at the barre, but Murphy still approaches his work with the heart and mind of a dancer. "I find the art of working with a portrait subject to be much like a pas de deux, where trust is more important than anything," he says. "Whomever I'm photographing has to be willing to take my hand and let me lead them. Likewise, I have to listen to their impulses because I may find that their energy leads me to a more exciting breakthrough."

Hit the jump to read more about Murphy and check out some of his excellent work.