Here is another album of photos from the Spring Freestyles. Overall it has been a busy week in the studio! I completed the photos from the River City Ballroom Dance Competition. Now they ready to view on the proofing website here:
I am especially hoping that Spring comes to the DC region this weekend! For this reason, I want to take new outdoor photos to share on the blog. It has been in particular a long winter, and warmer weather must be just around the corner. There are a few shoots on the upcoming schedule, but I do have more openings, so please contact if you are thinking about refreshing family photos, or have any events coming up where you would need photo coverage.
Pro Show from Spring Freestyles
Here are more photos from the Arthur Murray Spring Freestyles event. This is another of the professional shows – this time by the Columbia, Maryland studio. The energetic swing was an athletic display, and fun to photograph. Enjoy!
A few posts ago, I posted about depth of field in photography, and how you can use it to make more compelling images. When the aperture of the lens is opened, things in the frame that are not under the focus point will blur. Additionally have blurred background will not be distracting to the viewer. This pops the subject out from the frame and in particular gives a pleasing out-of-focus background for the main subject. Compression is another aspect relating to depth of field. Especially in the Spring Freestyles shoot I noticed that you can put to creative use in your photography.
If you want to experiment with your camera, set your F-stop to the lowest number available on your lens. In this case, this is printed right on your lens. For “kit” lenses that have variable apertures, it will say 1:3.5 – 5.6. On more expensive lenses it will only have one number like 1:2.8 or 1:1.4. The numbers 3.5, 2.8, or 1.4 designate what the largest aperture setting is possible with that lens. On variable aperture lenses, the largest aperture will vary depending on focal length. To put it another way, how far you have zoomed your lens will change the maximum aperture. At the wide, or lower end of the 1:3.5-5.6 lens the maximum aperture is f/3.5, zoomed all the way out, the maximum aperture is f/5.6. This is one of the specifications that makes professional lenses so much more expensive!
Compression
In looking through the Spring Freestyles photos, I saw compression, and small depth of field really changed a bank of lights in the ceiling of the ballroom. Take a look at these two photos, and notice the very yellow bank of square lights in the background:
They are small, high in the frame, not really adding much to the background. This was taken at wide length (24mm) taking in the dancer’s full bodies, and much of the surrounding audience. Compare that to the image below:
These were taken from the same shooting position, but I was crouched to the ground, and zoomed the lens to 150mm. This brings the bank lights much closer to the subject, and larger in the frame. With the large aperture of f/4, the lights, even though they take a larger part of the image, are blurred to not be distracting. The longer focal length and shooting higher in the room also takes away the surrounding audience and other elements making this a nice portrait right on the dance floor.
Get out and try this next time you are shooting. Whether indoors or out, this concept works. You can bring mountains, a full moon, or (gasp!) cherry blossoms closer or farther from your subject depending on how your want to compose your image. Let me know if you have any other good examples from your work. Good luck!
Today is another shooting day, but not for Arthur Murray! It is still ballroom related – specifically, I’m shooting the ballroom dance dresses for use on product pages on the web. This is yet another challenge that is very different from the action photography of dancers on the floor.
Product Photography
Because subjects are not moving, there is really no excuse not to get everything perfect! Lighting, background, and placement of subject is very important. It takes about 5 hours just to do 20 dresses if things are going well. Getting the color right is also important, so I use the flashes, and calibrated monitors to ensure a good representation of each dress. If only we could make sure that everyone that is looking at the dresses also have calibrated monitors, but we do our best to show the colors as they are. It should be good enough to entice you to request the dress for a try-on or rental for next competition. If you are interested, see the final results of these shoots at Encore Ballroom Couture, and call them if you need a new dress to wear for an upcoming competition or showcase.
Virginia Beach Pro Show
All of the professional showcases from the Arthur Murray Spring Freestyles were amazing. I want to highlight each of them on the blog, so I will continue to feature them in a single post. Today’s post is from the Arthur Murray Virginia Beach studio. This show had the intensity of good action sci-fi movie such as Tron. The music and movements were quite a mix of traditional dance with some athletic lifts and poses. Sometimes I wish I shot more video so that I could view more of the dancing instead of following along through the viewfinder! In any case, it was an amazing show to capture in stills, and I was happy with these. Enjoy!
