content/blog/2008/04/shooting-girl-jam.markdown @ 8ac00e12e749

+++
title = "Shooting Girl Jam"
snip = "I'm finally getting the kind of dancing photos I want."
date = 2008-04-29T18:31:16Z
draft = false

+++

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/sjl7678/2450406138/"
   title="GirlJamSaturday-5383 by Steve Losh, on Flickr">
    <img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3009/2450406138_473b84b17b_m.jpg"
         width="240" height="161" alt="GirlJamSaturday-5383"
         class="left" />
</a>

This past weekend (April 25-28) was [Northeast Girl Jam][] in Rochester, New
York. Girl Jam is a swing dancing workshop weekend that focuses on classes for
the followers. It was a huge success; we had a lot of people attend and
everyone seemed to have a great time. The dances had a ton of energy and the
late night parties were wonderful (as always).

I took a bunch of photographs over the course of the weekend, mostly during
the performances and competitions. Once I posted them I got a bunch of
questions asking me how I did it, so I figured I'd write here about it in more
detail. I used different techniques each day so I'll go through them one by
one.

[Northeast Girl Jam]: http://jojojackson.com/NEGJ/Home.html

Friday
------

My goal for the first two nights was to get images with the dancers sharp
enough to recognize but with enough blur to convey the feeling of movement and
energy in the room. I started playing with this technique at the blues parties
in the past and I think I'm really starting to get the hang of it.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/sjl7678/2449562969/"
   title="GirlJamFriday-4873 by Steve Losh, on Flickr">
    <img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2349/2449562969_68c82066e8_m.jpg"
         width="161" height="240" alt="GirlJamFriday-4873"
         class="left" />
</a>

On Friday I only had one of my flashes with me, so I had to make some
tradeoffs. I bounced the flash from the ceiling to get more even lighting
(directional light from a bare flash is usually too harsh), but since the
ceilings in Tango Cafe are so high it took a lot of power. I wound up shooting
at ISO 1600 and 3200 for most of the night so that my flash could be on a
lower power setting and fire faster. Even at that ISO the noise isn't really
that bad since the photos are exposed well (thanks to the flash). This photo
was shot at ISO 3200 and I don't think the noise distracts from the image much
at all.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/sjl7678/2449565301/"
   title="GirlJamFriday-4943 by Steve Losh, on Flickr">
    <img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2186/2449565301_e2491e6b7a_m.jpg"
         width="240" height="161" alt="GirlJamFriday-4943"
         class="right" />
</a>

I was using a wide angle lens (18mm) so that I could get entire bodies into
the frame. One of the things I love about Lindy Hop is that it really uses the
entire body which this photo really shows off. Cropping off huge parts of
people in every single shot makes that much harder to see. I set the aperture
to about f/4 and that gave me enough depth of field to get most things in
focus at 18mm. I set the shutter speed depending on the amount of ambient
light; it varied from 1/30 to 1/4 or so.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/sjl7678/2450392386/"
   title="GirlJamFriday-5007 by Steve Losh, on Flickr">
    <img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2410/2450392386_a61067e07f_m.jpg"
         width="161" height="240" alt="GirlJamFriday-5007"
         class="left" />
</a>

The trick that really made a difference in taking good photos is that once I
set the exposure I stopped looking at the camera entirely. I didn't review my
shots as I took them and I didn't even look through the viewfinder to compose.
Using a wide lens meant that I could just point the camera in the general
direction of the dancers and still get them. I took this photo at the late
night and the camera was held against my ribs as I did.

Why did I do that? I can perfectly compose an image but if the dancers aren't
doing something interesting it's going to be a boring photo. I've been dancing
long enough that I'm starting to be able to predict when something cool will
happen in a dance, but that only works if I'm paying complete attention to it.
Messing with the camera distracts me and I can only get the most obvious
moments. Ignoring the camera and watching the dancers means I can pick up more
subtle parts of the dance and capture those (as well as the obvious ones).

Saturday
--------

On Saturday I brought along two flashes to the dance and had Sergey hold one
while I held the other (thanks Sergey!). Two flashes means twice as much
light, which means I can shoot with recycle times twice as fast and have more
even light coverage.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/sjl7678/2450405794/"
   title="GirlJamSaturday-5379 by Steve Losh, on Flickr">
    <img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2227/2450405794_940545d63d_m.jpg"
         width="161" height="240" alt="GirlJamSaturday-5379"
         class="left" />
</a>

Since I was able to shoot twice as many photos I was able to experiment with
getting up close. Using a wide angle lens let me get most of the dancers in
the frame when super close and allowed me to play around with really
interesting perspectives. This photo is one of my favorites from the weekend.
Getting really close to Nina means that the distance between her and Carl is
exaggerated and adds to the sense of tension. Once again, the flashes freeze
the dancers and the ambient light burns in a bit of blur to add some movement.
This photo was also shot at ISO 1600 but the noise is definitely not the main
focus of this picture. As long as you don't underexpose noise is usually not a
problem in these kind of photos.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/sjl7678/2450404742/"
   title="GirlJamSaturday-5349 by Steve Losh, on Flickr">
    <img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2256/2450404742_3d9a3df777_m.jpg"
         width="161" height="240" alt="GirlJamSaturday-5349"
         class="right" />
</a>

Not only did I try getting up close, I also tried varying my angle more than I
usually do. I usually brace the camera against my ribs when taking these kinds
of photos for a few reasons:

* It's a safe height that will get the whole dancer in the frame.
* My ribs are vertical and so aligning the camera with them means that it's
  not wildly tilted up or down and I don't accidentally get ceiling- or
  floor-only photos.
* It keeps the camera close to my body where it's much less likely to be
  whacked by a stray limb.

Getting lower and higher gives me different perspectives that can have really
nifty results. The problem is that it's much harder to know if the subject is
completely (or even mostly) in the frame when the camera is in an awkward
position. To get a photo like this I probably shot four or five at strange
angles that I deleted.

One other fun thing to notice: you can see Sergey holding the flash right to
the left of her hips. I probably could have cloned out the flare in Photoshop
but I don't think it really detracts from the image much at all.

Sunday
-------
  
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/sjl7678/2449592347/"
   title="GirlJamSunday-5647 by Steve Losh, on Flickr">
    <img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3066/2449592347_6a17602cd9_m.jpg"
         width="161" height="240" alt="GirlJamSunday-5647"
         class="left" />
</a>

On Sunday I shot at a few of the workshops since there wasn't a dance. A
workshop has a very different feeling than a dance and so I didn't want to try
the same approach as the other two nights. Instead of using flash and a wide
lens I switched to a fast normal lens (my 50mm f/1.4). The light coming
through the windows was bright enough that I was able to shoot at around 1/60
at f/2 or f/2.8 and ISO 800 or 1600.

Once again the noise isn't much of a problem because the photos are exposed
well as this picture shows. The shutter speed is just slow enough to get some
blur at the ends of the limbs but not enough to lose all detail.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/sjl7678/2449590741/"
   title="GirlJamSunday-5512 by Steve Losh, on Flickr">
    <img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2076/2449590741_b47a5ced4c_m.jpg"
         width="161" height="240" alt="GirlJamSunday-5512"
         class="right" />
</a>

Since I was using a normal lens instead of a wide angle I had to mostly
abandon the idea of getting big group photos and instead try to capture
individual people as they learned. Using a wide aperture let me isolate the
people from the sea of arms and legs in the backgrounds and gave the images a
soft quality that helps reflect the feeling of the afternoon.

I really like the soft-yet-directional light that came from the big stained
glass windows combined with the overhead lights. Lately I've been using flash
a lot in my photography and it was fun to get back to using natural light. I'm
going to try to practice with it more in the near future.

Overall
-------

Northeast Girl Jam was awesome. I had a great time dancing and photographing
and got to see a lot of old friends (and meet new ones). If you're sad you
missed it there's another event in Rochester next month: [Stompology][]. It's
a weekend of solo jazz and Charleston workshops and awesome swing dances.

If you'd like to see the rest of the photos I took this weekend I posted them
on [Flickr][]. Feel free to comment there or find me on [Twitter][twsl];
advice/questions/comments are always appreciated!

[Flickr]: http://flickr.com/photos/sjl7678/collections/72157604785390431/
[Stompology]: http://stompology.com/
[twsl]: http://twitter.com/stevelosh/