Here are some Spring Freestyles photos for you. The DC Area Arthur Murray studios Summer Showcase is coming up on Saturday June 22, 2013. Of course here are plenty of choreographed routines being polished up right about now. Concurrently we can’t wait to get more photos of your hard work! We have not posted all of our favorites from the Freestyles event earlier this year, so these should get your excited for more dancing. Both events are held at this time at the McLean Hilton in Tysons Corner, VA.
Obviously, the photos will be different in the upcoming event. In case you are not familiar, the Freestyles event has many couples on the floor at the same time. Comparatively, the Showcase has only one dance couple out there. Additionally, they have selected the music for their dance. With the help of their instructors, they create a dance specifically tied to a music selection. Although they are different, they show off different aspects of dancing.
The TimeLine Media web server was busy this weekend with the Mid-Atlantic Championships phoots. Thanks especially to all of you that have visited! At this time, I was reminded that there is one even expiring this month, the USA Dance Mid-Atlantic Championships. This was a really nice competition of amateur dancers held at the North Bethesda Marriott last February 16-17, 2013. Because it was the first event of the year, we had lots of assistance with us, and we made many photos over the weekend. If you were there, or you know anyone that did attend, please send them the link to the event on our website to see their photos:
All photos are organized by dancer number so it should be easier to find your photos. However, if you need any help, send me an email. Additionally you can give me a call. I have been looking through these for a while now and am familiar with many of the faces on the website. We have two other dances coming up this month, so stay tuned for those photos coming up soon. If you have any other need for photos, let me know!
As with previous years, we caught up with many familiar faces. Being that this competition is close to home, we enjoy seeing the progress these dancers have made. Best of luck at Nationals!
With the internet, it is quite easy to be exposed to many good photographers. For me, post processing of photos can really separate competent photographers from outstanding ones. As with every other aspect of photography, concentrating on only one part of the craft can eventually hurt the quality of your work. You can concentrate on things like – buying gear, social media, marketing your business, making new photos, or post processing. If you only concern yourself with one of these aspects of photography, the others will suffer.
Dance Photography
In being a ballroom dance event photographer, I get the opportunity to make thousands of photos at an event. Post processing takes a lot of my time after events. Looking back at some of my first photos, I can see that I really went overboard using effects and sliders in Lightroom. The effects were good at attracting attention to my images on social networks, and I really had a lot of fun making them.
These “cross processing” presets in Lightroom used color shifts to emulate purposely incorrect film processing in the darkroom to create the effects. Some also used heavy darkening of corners to highlights subjects. This was a cutting-edge way to create photos. Since then, the explosion of Instagram, and other photo editing apps on iPhones and Android has made these looks more prevalent online. (For the record, I have recently joined Instagram, and actually enjoy it!)
So with the change in styles that I am seeing, I have gone back to doing less to photos, and leaving them as close to in-camera capture as I can. This is just another phase until the next thing comes out. For photographers, the message is making your images as best you can in camera, then post process them as you like it at the time. It will make you happy with the creative process and will mark eras in your photography life. We are digital photographers now. We don’t have different film stocks, or film chemistry that will change with the times. The best part is we have RAW files that make the transition with us, metadata, and all. So, you can always revisit photos as they were and update them, or not!
Here is where I am today, and I hope you come back to see what comes next –
