Posts Tagged ‘event’

Bally’s Ballroom

Open Professional Smooth Competitors
Open Professional Smooth Competitors

Life takes a strange winding road. Looking back, my wanting to be in something creative led me to photography. Although I love music, and had studied piano from 4 until college, my attempt at becoming a pianist, a-cappella music director, or recording engineer was just not sustainable. I had an amazing time doing these things, but I always seem to come up a bit short when challenged. Much like in my science career at the time, I was adequate, but not special. However, I may have gotten lucky at the Bally’s casino/hotel in Atlantic City.

Dance-o-rama

Bally's in Atlantic City, NJ
Bally’s in Atlantic City, NJ

When dancing in at the 2007 Arthur Murray Dance-o-rama, I photographed my fellow students, and instructors from the Arthur Murray dance center in Tysons Corner, VA. Throughout the weekend, I found that ballroom dance was a terrific subject for photos! Additionally it was a fun challenge to capture. There were different types of dances, and different costumes for each type of dance. Also lots of personalities that could be captured from facial expressions, body movement, and moments in between dances. I pushed my camera and 70-200mm lens as far as they would go. It was necessary to try to get better photographs during each heat.

Professional Dance Competition

Open Professional Rhythm Competitors Bally's in Atlantic City, NJ
Open Professional Rhythm Competitors

Overall the goal was to catch dancers in their dramatic lines that were well-practiced, and perfected leading up to the competition. Comparatively, i tried to catch students performing at their best in front of the judges! Likewise it was an ice breaker to interact with students from other studios. With a cheering crowd, and encouraging friends I felt that I really wanted to capture the mood. It was not every day that you see an event of this kind.

Open Professional Rhythm Competitors Bally's in Atlantic City, NJ
Open Professional Rhythm Competitors

Now, three years later, the thrill of that first big competition is still with me. With this in mind, I will again go to the Bally’s Atlantic City for the 2010 New Jersey State Open. It was the same room that I made my first ballroom dance photographs. I still get caught up in the excitement when the music starts. Moreover there is another set of friends, instructors, and dancers start to cheer! My hope is that I can capture not only the anxious, excited mood of the event but the months and years of work the dancers have invested.

Bally’s Atlantic City

Pro-Am dancers at the Arthur Murray Dance-o-rama in Bally's Atlantic City, NJ
Pro-Am dancers at the Arthur Murray Dance-o-rama in Atlantic City, NJ

There are so many I need to thank for helping me along this journey – Steve Theiss for giving my first opportunity to photograph dancers and who really helped open the door to more events, to my first subjects at this dance event who sucked my laptop’s battery dry on the ride home to view all the photos, and lastly to my wife Bryony who has gone to EVERY event I have photographed doing everything behind the scenes from downloading cards, editing images, and talking with dancers about our photography. I am really behind on the blog, but I promise to get more of our 2010 events up here very soon!

Snow Weekend!

Well we prepared for snow as best we could. There were warnings all week, and although we planned to attend the Clover Star Classic in Philadelphia, we decided to not go. Instead we make sure our home would be safe over the weekend. Luckily, the event was postponed. On account of the change, we had a chance for some photo opportunities. Of course we had to also put away the cameras and do some shoveling. Ugh. In any case, here are some photos from the weekend –

Snow covered services on the back deck
snow piling underneath Stop sign

I think there’s a car under the snow here somewhere:

snow covered cars parked on the road

My car is definitely under here:

The snow covering surfaces gives the most unique photos from these storms. Although it seems to come down evenly everywhere, the piles show a different story. Of course, I thought about another time lapse, but I did not think of a new perspective from the last time. So, I just stayed in and waited for the storm to subside before getting out the camera.

Similarly to other storms, we had clear skies after the worst was over. It was undeniably far from warm, but the sun made it almost pleasant to be outside. How did you fare through the storms?

TimeLine Mediawww.timelinedc.com
703-864-8208

2010 Clover Star Classic

Thanks to University of Pennsylvania Latin & Ballroom Dance for inviting me to photograph their upcoming event, the Clover Star Classic! We went to this event last year and had a blast! The collegiate competition is amazingly enthusiastic and athletic.

Clover Star Classic banner

Combined with their creative choreography, the ballroom costumes really fly by as the shutter tries to keep up! This will be TimeLine Media’s first ballroom dance event of the year, and I’m excited about photographing more. Overall, I have a goal of making unique and memorable images for dancers this year.

Did you attend the event last year? It was our first time going up there, and I want to receive some feedback on the photos. Especially since that was our collegiate ballroom event, we did not know what to expect. Of course we were blown away by the professionalism and focus that the dancers put into their art. Moreoever, we know they are studying dancing while doing a full course load of classes! For this reason, we are looking forward to see what the dancers have been working on since last year.

I’ll post some of my favorites both on this blog, and on the newly created Fan page for TimeLine media which can be found at this Facebook link.

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

1 181 182 183 184 185 186