I am taking a good rest this February weekend. The gear is getting cleared off and ready for more events that we will be covering this month. There is the USA Dance Mid-Atlantic Championships this upcoming weekend. Back to the dance floor with our cameras, and I am sure that the dancers are getting ready as well.
The weekend after is SingStrong DC in Reston, VA! Since this is an anniversary year from when I was first introduced to a cappella music, I will be definitely be ready to get an update on what groups are doing this year. Singing, choreography, arrangements – so many things have changed over the last 20 years, and I look forward to my annual “check-up” on the latest and greatest. If you are in the area, be sure to go to their website to get info on tickets. There will be lots of performances and workshops over the three days. Plus, I can make a photo of you!
It is only 10 days until we head out to cover our first ballroom dance event of 2014 – USA Dance MAC! I am really excited about getting out there to make another big collection of dance photos. It has been a while, and I am well rested from the editing and sorting of photos from last year. I have been busy making new ones with personal projects, but I cannot wait to get back to the colors, the music, and all the great action on the dance floor.
If you are in the metro DC area, you should make plans to come see at last some part of the competition. The USA Dance Mid-Atlantic Championships is a huge competition with lots going on both on and off the floor. The venue, the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel and Conference Center, is one of the nicest settings for dancing. It is a large, bright room that can accommodate the large floor, and all the couples easily. We try to improve our setup of lighting every year, and I have some ideas for this year to help me and photographers make the best photos for you. Please come out and see the action live, and come back here to see our photos.
I know the organizers are always trying new things with each competition. They have a lot of technology in use to make it easier for the judges, scrutineers, and dancers to stay on track. We really enjoy seeing their innovation, and am privileged to be covering their event for another year. It should be a fun weekend!
There was a very nice installation at Tysons Corner Center a few weekends ago. The display was very photo-centric and unique much like a lot of the content by National Geographic. Brain Games is a new show on the Nat Geo channel that describes how our brain interprets the visual data gathered by our eyes. If you watch this show, the demonstrations are mind-bending in the way that they show how our mind will digest information. Sometimes, there will be blind spots, sometimes the mind will fill in missing areas of information with its own data, not unlike “content aware” options in Adobe Photoshop.
To go along with this show, the display had 4 different setups that made for some great illusions when captured on camera. There were rooms that were setup upside down, some with drastically sized furniture that would change the size of people in the frame, and some used mirrors to trick the eye into interpreting the scene. I do not have any photos from my camera on the setup since the camera position was very integral in getting the effect correct. I tried in a few frames, but it did not work as well as their setup – a credit to the designers and builders of the display! So after getting some standard photos of the display and the crowd that was taking part in the demonstrations, I decided I need to get some sort of strange – brain bending angles to the photos.
Fisheye Photography
This is where the fisheye lens comes in. I rarely uses these on shoots. When you first get a fisheye, you will use it constantly for a week, then you struggle to find an appropriate time to use it, especially for client work. The extreme wide angle distortion makes it difficult to use with people, and architecture photography would be too unrealistic with these lenses. If you shoot weddings, there will likely be a handful of times during a ceremony or the reception where it would be nice to get an overall view of the venues with the fisheye. The one I have is the 16mm Nikkor lens which is not the best performing lens, and has not been updated with a new model in quite some time.
Nikon 16mm Fisheye Lens
Although there are lots of people in these photos, I had the camera on a tripod to get blurred motion from people moving through the display. It depicts more of the drama and action while keeping all of the elements of the display sharp. In Lightroom, you can straighten the bulbous curves in the frame using the Lens Corrections panel in the Develop Module. I try both the corrected and the uncorrected versions before deciding on a final version. It really depends on what is at the edges of the frame as to which is the best for the photo. Corrected frames will really stretch the edges which is not as bad for structures as it is for having people in those areas. I am happy with how this came out, and now have Brain Games on the TV watch list!
