The dance school had their dress rehearsal today for our upcoming regional competition in Brooklyn. This was also a dress rehearsal for me, as it has been a while since I have taken crappy light action photos. The project I did in December for the school was low light, and for the most part my 7D handled it quite nicely and produced some very nice photographs. I also benefited from being very close to the dancers. Today, not so much.
My goal today was to get some wide-angle shots of the dances and I did succeed in doing that. Today though my throw away counts were much higher than normal. Since I am a canon guy….5D mark III anyone? l can dream right? I was tempted to ask the light guy for some more juice, but we were guests and I wanted the challenge.
The overhead pots were the only ones on here, the strip in the back is not on.
The past couple of years we have had dress rehearsal at one of the local elks lodge’s and because I am who I am and the space was isolated I very well could not be present when the dressing rooms were in the same room as the dances! This year rehearsal was held at a local high school which meant all was safe for me. Sweeeet!
So back to this light stuff and my desires for wide-angle today. The competitions also have some low light but it is your typical indoor event stage lighting. I can get away with an iso of 2000 and produce a decent exposure. I was at 2000 today and my meter barely registered. The actual competitions are not wide-angle friendly. Lots and lots of heads in the way. Heads of the audience, heads of the judges and a riser in the middle holding the music and photo crews. So it is more of a long lens day and normally from a slight angle. Today was for the groups, not something I often get to do.
The opening of this dance…..picture Peanut on steroids. I had one of those mouth wide open in disbelief moments.
My apologies to the dancer I cut out, just was not wide enough for this next one.
From the same dance, and to show a good example of the challenges of stage lighting:
There looks to be about five different textures of light in this one. Good times! Very difficult to edit, impossible for me to do. I am not that skilled.
One of my favorite shots of the day, and a dance I am looking forward to shooting live:
My favorite discipline is still ballet and these young girls are beautiful. The light even adds an interesting pattern
Five days to go! Wish us luck!
Before I sign off, I just had a fleeting thought of what some people may be wondering. Am I a dance dad. Technically speaking, yes. I have a daughter who is very involved in dance and my wife and I support her artistic desires 100%. But we leave it right there, we know she is in good hands. I do not think anyone in our studio is remotely close to resembling that show that I have seen for about 15 minutes just to fulfill my curiosity. I will even say this, dance moms is like the show Jersey Shore. Neither one of them is a true representation of what either is really like. Reality TV my @%%. Bring back The Sing Off, that was enjoyable.
All for now, Till next time….
Twilight and Dusk 