Beaten by Dance Photography
I’ve got a rather long history of rambling on about all sorts of awesome stuff on this blog – and I’ve prided myself on being able to pull off most types of photography with more or less success. I’ve photographed a fair share of concerts, I’ve got a post lined up about wedding photography (although my post on event photography covers some of it).
Anyway, all of this goes only to illustrate that I am relatively handy with a camera – so when I was talking to my good friend Laurie about him being in a dance competition, I arrogantly proclaimed ‘how difficult can it be?’. Well… As it turns out, it’s pretty damn tricky.
Just think about it – you’re in a dodgy-looking room, with crappy backgrounds, poor lighting, and the dances normally last only for about 90 seconds at the time. The people you are trying to photograph aren’t just moving – they’re moving fast (which necessitates a fast shutter speed), in 5 dimensions (back / forward, left/right, up/down, around each other, and in time), and they’re on the dance-floor with anything up to 10 other couples, who twirl their way in front of your lens just when you think you’ve got the killer shot lined up.
A poor tradesman blames his tools…
I’ve been speaking very warmly about the Canon EOS 450D – which is currently my main camera, as I don’t really do that much professional work anymore. The camera has served me incredibly well; I’ve succesfully photographed concerts and weddings, macro and portraits, and I’ve been telling everyone who cares to listen to me that it’s probably one of the best bang-for-the-buck cameras out there.
Now, given that I always shoot RAW (one of the tips here, remember…), I finally found the point where the 450D meets the wall; It only has a 5-frame RAW buffer, and the poor DIGIC chip can’t chomp down the photos quickly enough. I’m absolutely, 100% positively convinced that I missed some absolute crackers of shots because the buffer was full, and nothing happened when I tripped the shutter. Aw shucks.
Anyway – I have to honestly admit that there is very little point to this post – I just figured it’s been a while since I last posted anything, and I wanted to share some of my not-very-good photographs with you guys…
On dance photography; stay tuned
My dance-and-photography-obsessed buddy Laurie has promised to write you all a thorough guide to dance photography, so rest assured that we’ll get a proper guide here soon enough
As an aside, those of you who know me know that I don’t really do failure… The last time I knew little about a topic I ended up getting slightly obsessed, ended up building my own equipment which culminated in writing a book on the topic – so expect a lot more writings, musings, and guides to dance photography going forward!
Show me what you can do!
I’ve seen some wicked cool dance photography on the internet in the past – and I’m jealous. Not just a little bit either, but properly jealous – so if you’ve ever done any, feel free to show off in the comments below – I would just love to see what you guys come up with!
Some could-have-been-better photos…
So yeah, I think there’s a lot of improving to do before I’ll be happy with my dance photography skills – and who knows, perhaps this is finally the excuse I’ve been looking for to buy myself a new camera… And now that the Canon EOS 5D mk2 has broken cover, maybe it’s time to start saving some money or see if Santa doesn’t want to buy me a new camera this year…
Anyway, here’s some of the shot which I felt had a shred of potential, but still need a load of work…
My day job, if it can be called that, is being a writer. I've got one book out there so far and it's awesome, so go ahead and buy a copy! It's available from 
In front of you, five hyperactive men with guitars, drums, and microphones. Behind you, five thousand fans. In your hands, a camera... You're going to need more than just a little bit of good luck to pull this one off. That's where this book comes in.
Take a Canon EOS 450D. Attach a Canon 50mm f/1.4 lens. Hit the streets of London. See what happens.
Insights, suggestions and comments
Yes, it’s hard. I found that out myself at a dance competition at the University of Michigan. I shot JPG and set white balance (dodgy lights, as you said) with an ‘Expo Disc’, which saved me lots of grief. No flash, it would have disturbed the dancers at the rate I was shooting. I frequently had to reset the custom white balance, though, because the gymnasium had skylights as well as those horrible metal halide overhead lights. Anyway, I got a couple of keepers. One rule I learned on this one – spray and pray – just bang on that shutter and do not let up. Shoot JPG, keep your memory cards ready – and fast – and keep plenty of batteries on hand. I did cheat a bit – a manual focus 50mm f/1.7 and a 135mm f/2.8 for when it got too dark to AF my Pentax *ist DS reliably.
Anyway, here’s my shots. I like yours, by the way. Very nice indeed.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wigwam/sets/72157603882552565/
I learned a lot. Now, if you REALLY want to get beat up, try shooting a Kendo match!
Haha… good post! You’ve got some nice shots there… I think the black and white works well.
I have taken one dance picture in my time… it is about the only one that turned out from an entire memory stick of shots! http://www.willbl.com/2007/07/andean-girl-dancing/
PS… you wrote 50d instead of 5d.
Whoops on the 50D/5D
Will / Wigwam, thanks for your kind words, but I’m not at all happy with them. Latin dance is about gusto, about being alive, about passion, motion, emotion, control and expression. As photographs, they’re not shabby – hell, as portraits, they’re not bad either – but I don’t think they convey the essence and the intensity of the dance.
As I say, stay tuned, I can very easily see this dance photography malarkey turning into a bit of an obsession – which I no doubt get bored of as soon as I get the hang of it ;-)
- Haje
The photography club I belong to has a few times now been invited to photograph modern dance at a local theater. I didn’t know what to expect at first but have really enjoyed it. It wound up being a great lesson for me, as I tried to communicate what I felt while watching and not just replicating things literally.
Having gotten to know the director some we’ve been invited to practices, even on stage where I had some fun with strobe lighting. This is of course not the same type of dance that you bring up here, but I wanted to share. :)
Here’s a slideshow of my photos on Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/search/show/?q=ModernDance&w=93249840%40N00
My girlfriend is into dance, so that led me to one of her dance competitions. For the next one, I’ll try higher ISO and faster lenses.
http://morningglass.org/index.php?x=browse&category=30
I disagree with wigwam on shooting jpeg, at least under artificial light. While mine are heavily processed, shooting RAW gives you more flexibility with white balance if you go color. Like all sports, hanging out and becoming familiar with the moves is probably more productive than spray and pray, and will net more shots that both the average person and dancers appreciate (guess I better add dance lessons to my list of improvements).
Hi there, Ive done a couple of dance performance photography at events and I understand what you mean by the block in technological advantage. I use a 400D and it is very poor with the lighting and in most cases, run at 1600iso and sometimes, it depends on luck but on certain performances, you end up with terrible lighting(ie-strobes, not to mention coloured lighting- the worst of all, dim red, which totally throws the whole teams camera’s color balance out of whack) and I also believe it is better to shoot in jpeg because you always need to be ready for the next shot/pose(like you said, you were waiting for your buffer) unless you have an extremely powerful camera(ie 1d, 5d etc) Generally, professional solo couple dance performances are much more fun/easier/satisfying to shoot due to the better dance lines and forms. Heres a performance night that I recently shot for fun using an external flash(for the first time for dance for experiments sake)
http://minwye.com/blog/2008/10/25/october-salsa-fest-friday-performances/
One other thing I find is that it is much easier to shoot dance performance photography if you understand the music and have a sense of musicality because the chereography tends to make full use of playing around the breaks and the lead ups in the music.
I agree; I think photoing what is essentially a fast-moving sport gets a lot easier the more you do it. I’ve been photoing windsurfers for the last year or so and the conditions at first made it rather challenging – big gusts of wind, longest lens I own which made everything shaky and blurry, often salt spray from the sea to seize up the lens, sometimes rain, complete cloud cover and cold to contend with. But with practice, I think I’m gradually improving and a big part of that is knowing where they’re likely to turn/take off/land/etc:
One of the first set I took:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/evie_z/2079961853 – far too close, sail in front of face, dodgy compostition etc.
And one of the most recent:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/evie_z/2602019350 – I’m actually quite happy with this one, but I think there’s still a lot of learning for me to do :)
HELLO!
I Have been Beaten by Dance Photography too. I use very fast lenses and Canon 5D.
Lenses are for me most importan thing, because I want beautiful bokeh for backrounds. Beautiful and hard, thats dancing. Most fine lenses 85/1.2 and 200/1.8 L.
http://www.kuvagalleria.net/winterdance/
Matti Lipponen
I totally sympathise – I’m a dancer and have been trying to combine my two interests for years, but even now good results are more luck than judgement. Ballroom has the couple facing each other and looking in opposite directions – that’s the point – so you’re inevitably going to get the back of someone’s head. Latin is easier pose-wise, but capturing the energy is tortuous.
I think your shots are pretty good, though. Maybe there isn’t the intensity, but you’ve got some decent poses, which is always a split-second thing.
Cutting out the background is awkward too – you’ve done a good job above. I’ve twice got onto a balcony above the floor, which can help, although even then I wasn’t particularly happy with the results.
As Robert says, a high ISO, fast lenses and occasionally frantic shutter-bashing are a must. I’m also with him on RAW – the different coloured lights at these places are usually mental and way beyond the camera’s capabilities to understand, so it’s easier to fix the WB later. Actually I find the colours rarely balance nicely, so I often convert to b/w.
Very much looking forward to your friend’s guide!
I thought we were trying to *get* you dancing, not just to more dance competitions?
Sounds like a good excuse to try one of these! (I’ve been trying to convince myself I don’t need one, just want one ever since they announced it.)
Reminds me of one the most difficult things I tried to photograph- an indoor ultimate frisbee tournament. Again, the lighting was bad, other participants often got in the way, the action was incredibly fast and I didn’t know enough about the activity to anticipate when a good shot might be coming up.
just great! awsome pics!!!
Anything fast-paced you’re not familiar with will beat you. I don’t really do dance photography, but one thing’s for sure: Don’t expect your usual quality first time around. Most of the good shots you get is by knowing what to expect when, and with dance, you have to know what moves the dancers will or might do.
There’s this dancing competition on TV here in Norway (a version of “Dancing with the stars”), and I’ve been lucky enough to be on a shoot there. The main chalenge there isn’t people getting in the way, but expecting each shot (fire away!), using the right lens (no, a 135mm 2.8 is NOT a good choice!) and getting the pictures out before scanpix. I learned that night that scanpix sends so-so photos via 3G from inside the studio (there is no WiFi there) and don’t wait until breaktime. Then the only way to make money is by getting a particularly good/insane/exclusive shot.
As for lens, I just baught an old beater, a 80-200 2.8L for my 5D. It changes everything. Now I can actually compose!
Thursday, I was sendt to a hockey game. My boss at Stella Pictures told me “it’s good practice” and “you’ll probably enjoy it”. Don’t think I sold a single photo (scanpix again), but I got about 5 decent action shots out of about 600 exposures. Not too bad for a fast-paced game, and never actually having seen one before. (Didn’t even know there were three periods.) One thing I regret not catching is a closeup on someone getting crushed against the plexiglass. Dang! :)
Oh, and forget RAW if you’re on jobs like these! When have you got time to edit them anyway? Unless you’re not working on an 11PM deadline or in competition with other photographers… I think next gig like this, I won’t even be shooting full resolution, just to shave off a few seconds of D/L time!
Just FIY: I like shooting RAW (and film) and spend a couple of hours getting each shot just right in PS. I don’t like doing just cheap JPEG’s and not even having time to edit, but when I do stuff for a picture agency, I just don’t have the time. It all comes down to getting the best exposure possible and forgetting about the fancy stuff. Sadly. (Though, it’s money in my pocket, as we say here in Norway.)
There is one really big advantage (compared to sports) if you’re serious about dance photography, though: It’s choreographed! If you’re going on a shoot with just one of the couples in a dance competition, you can TRY to get som practice shots in first, by going to one or more rehersals. They’re not going to deviate from their routine when they get to the competition, so what you have to worry about then is where you position yourself to get the perfect angle. Right behind the judges should be perfect. I mean, that’s who they’re showing off for. Ballet is the same, though the judges have been swapped for the entire audience. Front and center, unless you’ve got a massive lens! Oh, and with ballet, get permission first!
Flash is a BIG no-no with all performing arts! Unless you have a deal with whoever you’re photographing and it’s a rehersal. During a show, it completely shatters the “magic”, and fucks up the experience for EVERYBODY! Compacts with flashes are used often nowadays, but I’m happy to see that most people behave in audience areas until the ovation. Ovation flashes, on the other hand, feels somewhat glamourous to me, so I’ll forgive them for that! :)
Dance photography is an adventure !
Because of the wide variety of lighting and movement.
I have a blog post with some tips
http://www.imagefusionstudio.com/blog/category/dance-photography/
Okay, so this is my take on capturing the correct pose.
I have taken many many ballroom classes. That’s my wife’s doing. As you get more advanced you constantly hear one line over and over, the man is simply a frame for the woman. So when I am looking for a picture, I taking one of the woman and trying to make the man the best frame as possible.
It’s horrible for capturing an event, because the men never really get to be central to the photo. It works though. Good dancers will understand.
The only other thing I can recommend is nuking the crude out of the available light. The few times I’ve photographed dance events I learned fairly fast that you don’t want to see anything but the couple. So I on my last one I mounted a couple of SB-800 to poles over my left and right shoulder. I used an exterior frame backpack to frame to mount them to. Yes it was unwieldy, but with those and an on camera sb-800 I was able to nuke the ambient.
I’ve read and tested many different approaches to shooting dance performances and have come up with a base formula that works for me. Although I tweak it everytime I shoot.
Primary Lens – 70-200mm f2.8 (currently I shoot non IS which will hopefully make it easier once I get the IS one!)
Sometimes I use the 135mm f2.0 L, but I find the 70-200 is perfect for small theatres on a 1.6 crop camera, probably better on a full frame.. But if you are shooting @ 200mm the slightest shake will make the image have some loss of detail.
I shoot in AV mode and set the ISO so that I can get at least around 120th as the type of dance I have been shooting you can pretty much freeze a dancer at the speed. But the more the better.
I never shoot with a flash. I think its rude and disruptive to the performers and the audience. I try to be as discrete as possible.
Also regarding the ISO.. since I still use a 350D I never go over 800 since its too noisy. Although doing B&W the ISO actually looks kind of cool, imo.
I put the camera on AF and aim for the nose. Since I shoot wide open (2.8 on the zoom) I find aiming right at the eyes or nose of the main dancer gets it pretty close.
I always show up a few hours before the performance and get comfortable with the theatre, hopefully also catching some pre performance practicing / lighting to get an idea what I am working with.
Stage lighting when done well is just fine for capturing frozen motion. But not everyone performs in a proper theatre ;)
Being familiar with the dance helps immensely. When there is more than one person on stage its really challenging to get the perfect moment when everyone is well positioned. I used to shoot tons of photos and pick the best but my last performance I just focused on the dancers and following them on stage in their performance. Its kind of hard to describe, but I think for capturing more emotion it helps to be attentive to the performer …
Also I shoot in RAW then edit the photos in LR. Nothing too fancy just correcting the white balance since I have not much experience tweaking white balance in the camera.
here is an image from the last performance I shot. http://www.flickr.com/photos/mardala/3520621789/sizes/m/in/photostream/
Hi Haje Jan,
Nice to see that there are other people out there taking on the same challenge as I have been trying to master over the last 6 years: dance photography. I actually run a website at http://www.piep.nu devoted just to dance photography, ballroom and latin-american in particular. Yes, it is hard to get good shots, but once you have your basic settings under control, you can start focusing on the shots.
Personally, I use a Canon EOS 20D with a Canon 70-200 EF 2.8L IS lens and a Canon Speedlite 580 EX II flash. I keep my camera set on Tv and use 1/200 most of the time (1/160 for slower dances). The aperture mostly ends up at f2.8, but that’s just fine since I want the background to be blurred anyway. At most events, there just isn’t enough light to shoot without flash and the 20D shots get noisy at ISO 800, so I tend to use the flash a lot. The dancers don’t seem to mind… But when there IS enough light, I turn off the flash and get WAY better shots in terms of atmosphere.
Anyway, just my 2 cents. Just take a look at my site and check out the (more recent) photos. Let me know what you think of them…
Cheers!
Peter
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