Weight training for injury prevention by Steven Ragatz

Warming Up by Steven Ragatz

Visualization and Juggling by Steven Ragatz

Numbers Training by Steven Ragatz

Promo shots do not need to be literal images from an act or a show. Rather, the single promo shot should communicate the essence of the performer and give the viewer a taste of what the performance would feel like. In my opinion, it should convey an emotional response, rather than an intellectual one. Equally, the image should stand on it's own right. It can be beautiful by itself, without ever committing to any actual reference to the act or performer.

The literal information about an act can be conveyed with a video or an audition.

Most juggling images loose all of their power in still photography. After all, it is nothing these days to take a picture and simply cut and paste objects around the juggler. The thing about juggling that is dramatically interesting is the motion and the risk, both of which are lost in a photograph. One way around this is to time-lapse the motion into a blur. This effect translates fairly well, but still does not do the action justice.

Whether or not Oliver actually performs a balance with five balls, the image tells me a great deal about his act. I have never seen him perform, but judging from the image that you are referring to, I would guess that:

He is a juggler and works with balls, though not just tossing them
He relies on movement and choreography
His "character" is very neutral and introspective
He works in the small
The feel is contemporary/new age

These are just some impressions that I got when I saw the picture - a far richer image than that of someone slack-jawed, looking up at a bunch of balls in the air.

Steven Ragatz