Posts Tagged ‘dancing’

Photo Proofing – Tech Thursday

Standard Ballroom Dance - ©TimeLine Media

Still have thousands of photos waiting to go on the website! I am still working late in to the night and getting up early to get as much time to go through the photos. My email is mostly on hold, and I only check in to social networks sparingly to link to new blog posts from here. This is all because I want to get these photos onto the proofing site as soon as possible. Why does it take so long? The reason is I want the images to look as good as they can before they are released for viewing.

Baltimore Dancesport Challenge

Showcase Dance - ©TimeLine Media
Showcase Dance – ©TimeLine Media

Images that are out of focus and immediately deleted. For ballroom dance and other events, any photos where the hands or other objects are obscuring the main subject are also removed. All of our cameras are set to shoot RAW files. This is a less-refined version of the JPG files that are more common. Shooting in RAW allows us to recover more detail from photos where the flashes did not pop, or to adjust the exposure in post.

Standard Ballroom Dance - ©TimeLine Media
Standard Ballroom Dance – ©TimeLine Media

In setting up the lights for competitive heats, we keep the flashes behind the photographers so they will light the faces of dancers as they pass in front. With ballroom dance floors being very large, there is a gradation of how far the flash will go. If dancers are closer to the photographers, they will be brighter than dancers that are farther away. Shooting in RAW means that there is a lot more data in each file that can be recovered. So to compensate for these differences, I can adjust the Exposure, Highlights or Shadow sliders in Adobe Lightroom to make the photos look similar to each other.

USA Dance Mid-Atlantic Championships

Latin Dance - ©TimeLine Media
Latin Dance – ©TimeLine Media

With the change in the amount of flash, there can also be changes in the color temperature of the photos. We set the cameras to be balanced to the color of the flashes. However if they do not fire, the photos take a very warm, yellow/orange color. This can also be easily adjusted with the White Balance slider. You do not have as much leeway when using JPG files. So again, the RAW files are necessary for this kind of shoot. It does take lot of space on the hard drives, and it takes a lot of time to make the corrections, but I think it’s worth it!

Smooth Ballroom Dance - ©TimeLine Media
Smooth Ballroom Dance – ©TimeLine Media

TimeLine Media – www.timelinedc.com
703-864-8208

Editing Spring Freestyles – dance photos

Samba professional show - ©TimeLine Media

Not a long post today as I am still editing the photos from last weekend’s events. The first one that I am working on is the DC Area Arthur Murray Spring Freestyles held last Friday and Saturday. We had some great photographers helping out to cover the split dance floor. There are close to 12,000 images to go through, edit, crop, and sort by studio, so I hope to have these done by Saturday. Please stay tuned to the blog for updates!

Arthur Murray Columbia - ©TimeLine Media
Arthur Murray Columbia – ©TimeLine Media 

For our booth, we displayed some nice large posters from the Columbia and Tysons Corner studios. They were the top two winners from the TimeLine Media Facebook contest! Although the original Columbia poster had all three shows on one, I decided to break them out separately. The dancers could have more exposure on each, and we could rotate the display a little. The studios were eager to have them which always makes us feel good to get the great response from them, and the other dancers attending the event! We will definitely do it again from the professional shows at the Freestyles. All the shows had some great moments, and I captures some good ones. It should be fun editing them after all the competitive heats.

Samba professional show - ©TimeLine Media
Samba professional show – ©TimeLine Media

If you do not want to wait for an update on the blog or the Facebook page, you can go to the proofing site now. There, I have a placeholder for the images from the Freestyles event. If you click on it, you can add your email address to the list to be notified as soon as the photos are ready to view. Here is the link:

http://proofs.timelinedc.com
Arthur Murray Columbia - ©TimeLine Media
Arthur Murray Columbia – ©TimeLine Media

TimeLine Mediawww.timelinedc.com
703-864-8208

New Jersey State Open Photo Expiring

Professional Ballroom Dance Heats - ©TimeLine Media

The photos from the 2013 New Jersey State Open will expire this upcoming Monday, March 31, 2014. After that date, the photos will be removed from the website and sent to the archives. If you have any photos that you would like to have in print or digital form, this is your last chance to get them. To view the photos, please visit the link to the proofing website at:

http://proofs.timelinedc.com

New Jersey State Open - ©TimeLine Media
New Jersey State Open – ©TimeLine Media

This event was another great one for photos. I have posted many times about how much the setup the ballroom at the Golden Nugget in Atlantic City works well for our photography. With the size of the ballroom, we have a lot of flexibility on how to light the room. In having 2 events to shoot there annually, the setup is much easier for us now. Having the knowledge of where you want to setup your gear, and where you want to position yourself to shoot, allows me to just concentrate on following the dancers on the floor. Then it is easier to get better photos, and have less “test shots” to go through before they get good!

Professional Ballroom Dance Heats - ©TimeLine Media
Professional Ballroom Dance Heats – ©TimeLine Media

At last years, NJ State Open, there were some nice exhibition showcases prepared by both amateurs and professionals which added a lot of personality and theatrics to the event. This added some different images from the competitive heats that we see at other competitions. There was also time for some general dancing on Saturday evening, and other non-ballroom dance shows to enjoy. Keep this event in mind for this October and visit the competition website for updates as the dates draw near!

Showcase performance at the 2013 NJSO - ©TimeLine Media
Showcase performance at the 2013 NJSO – ©TimeLine Media

This weekend, TimeLine Media will be covering the DC Area Arthur Murray Spring Freestyles event in Chantilly, VA. There will likely not be any updates on the blog, but I will be posting updates on my Twitter Feed, the Facebook page, and my Instagram Feed when I get the chance. See you on the dance floor!

Professional Ballroom Dance Heats - ©TimeLine Media
Professional Ballroom Dance Heats – ©TimeLine Media

TimeLine Media – www.timelinedc.com
703-864-8208

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