Dancers love to see those cool shots of themselves on the dance floor doing their thing. The photos can be serious, funny, completely wacky or full of emotion. Some photographers are fantastic at capturing these moments, some of us are improving with every shot. I'd like to tell you a bit about my current thought process when I photograph dancers.
Planning
Every time you go to take a photo you have dozens of things to think about from the lighting on the subject, what you want to convey with the photo, if you want the background sharp or blurry, the angle of the shot, making sure you're not in anyone's way when taking the photo, etc, etc. Thinking about each and every one of those things every single shot would drive me crazy, so I try to plan ahead. When I get somewhere I see where the best lighting is and where it's the worst. I also check to see where you can position yourself so that you aren't in the way.
This gives me a mental map of the room with spots picked out to shoot from. As the dance progresses I remove spots that don't work and add more. This is a very crudely drawn map of a dance I shot recently, I shot this dance without a flash and so used only ambient light (I talk about the pros and cons of using a flash later). You can see how I have the light sources marked in yellow, angles with poor lighting in red and spots where I can position myself in blue.
Perspective
Every photograph is about perspective, photos of dancers are no different. But getting the perspective you want is the interesting part. As a photographer you get to do a lot of sitting, squatting, leaning, bending over and just plain contortion. Finding the perspectives that give you good photos is a matter of trying things out an seeing what works. Everyone takes shots that just don't work but as you get more experience you'll end up with more keepers and less throw alway shots. Here are a few of my favorite (read: hilarious looking) ways you can get different perspectives in our photos.
Ariel Penu at Wild Wild Westie 2016 demonstrating the classic squat.
A number of photographers showing off a few different poses we use at Moscow Westie Fest 2015.
Photo: Brad Whelan
Brad Wheland showing off the "get as low as you can" technique for getting the perfect shot.
Photo: Brad Whelan
Ariel Penu proving she can take photos while doing the splits.
Photo: Brad Whelan
Lighting
Lighting is one of the most important things when it comes to photography in general. We have great digital cameras these days that let us shoot in lower light than we ever could with traditional film cameras but even they have limits. There are three things you can do for lighting; have a camera and lens that let you shoot with confidence in low light, have good lighting where you're shooting, or use a flash or multi flash setup. Each of these options has it's pros and cons as you'd expect:
- If you want a camera/ lens that shoots well in low light you're going to spend a lot of money but you will get great shots. The nice thing about having this quality equipment is it gives you a lot more flexibility in how you shoot and the types of photos you can take.
- Shooting dancers with ambient lighting that is good enough with out a flash is difficult because we tend to like a relaxed atmosphere with lights set relatively low. Shooting with ambient light also creates a problem because you're shooting moving subjects, to get a good exposure (see these articles on exposure and shutter speed) you can't freeze motion so you'll get blurs in your photos. That's why if you're using only ambient light you have to plan out your shots as I talked about above.
- Using a flash or strobe can cause problems if you're using a direct flash instead of a bounce flash because it can temporarily blind everyone around. Using a flash can also a huge boon because not only can you freeze motion and capture some stunning photos it also lets you give your subject an extra pop in the photo. So using a flash has to be done with consideration and planning but it will give you photos that look much better.
Give consideration to how you're going to approach the dance, even before you walk in the door or get in your car to drive over. Using a flash is the biggest difference that you can make but please use a bounce flash so it's not blinding everyone.
You have to start somewhere
If you're just starting to shoot dancers start with these two things (like I am) and then just play around till you find what works for you. As you go you'll get comfortable with something and find that you can then start trying to do one more thing. My advice, take photos and see what you get. When you get a photo you like remember what you did to take it and try it again next time. I'll have more posts in the future about more aspects of dance photography but I wanted to get this out there for those of you that want to get started. See you on the dance floor!
Also check out some of my favorite photographers, these are the people who I look at their photos and try to learn from.
Ariel Penu & Brad Whelan both do awesome dance photography.
Kate De La Rosa is an old friend of mine that does some BEAUTIFUL portraits and family shoots.