Photographer Tan Ngiap Heng has long been synonymous with the Singapore dance scene, having photographed various dance groups and artists.

But during a personal trip to Tuscany in 2010, he decided to take his relationship with dance a bit further and came up with a series of self-portraits where he danced under an open field at night or in a hot spring in the early morning.

That series, Moonlight Sonata, forms part of Tan’s latest solo show Body Of Work, which opens on Monday at ION Art Gallery, the first show in the gallery’s series focusing on mid-career and established Singapore photographers. It’s also Tan’s second solo show dealing with dancers after 2008’s Dance Me Through The Dark, a series of portraits that came as a result of having been resident photographer for the Singapore Dance Theatre.

The 48-year-old artist, who was a finalist at last year’s ICON de Martell photography competition, described that trip as a turning point. “Since I came back, my works took on a new direction that’s not just (about) pretty photographs,” he said.

While he still does dance photography on a commercial basis, he stopped doing it as personal projects after realising “a jump and split is just another jump and split”. “Last time, the answer was already there before I took a photograph, which is the classical idea of beauty. Now, the answers arise organically.”

His latest show focuses on the body, predominantly through that of dancers, but these aren’t your typical dance portraits. In the Dancing With Light series, Tan uses long exposure and LED lights to capture contemporary dance artists’ “signature energies” and movements in space in the whirl and blur of the images.

He collaborated with dancers, theatre practitioners and friends for Portraits As History, where the old family photos of his subjects are projected onto their naked bodies. Personal history is, in a sense, literally grafted on the skin like tattoos or, as Tan put it, “it’s the internal history of the person coming out”.

But Tan has also gone beyond still images. The show also includes his first video installation, entitled Stealing Breath, Stopping Time, which comprises three screens that show the different angles of a dancer performing, a work that arose from a personal experience of itching to move himself when he sees a dancer performing.

The photographer isn’t just an outside observer of the dance scene — he embraces dance itself. Aside from his dance-inspired self-portrait series, he is taking up tango classes and there will be a tango performance right at the art gallery on one of the days during the exhibition’s run. His personal involvement in his topic and subject of choice extends to the rest of the performing arts scene, as seen in the Work In Process, his recent project in collaboration with LASALLE College of the Arts, which documented the rehearsals of various theatre and dance groups.

“I am the photographer I am today because of the performing arts,” he said, before adding: “I hang out with really cool people!”

Body Of Work runs from Oct 20 to Nov 2, 10am to 10pm, ION Art Gallery, Level 4, ION Orchard. Free admission. The dance performance is on Oct 24, 9pm. Entrance fee is S$15 (S$20 for two, S$10 for non-dancers) and includes wine and snacks.