Unless otherwise noted all text, pictures, captures and illustrations are by Mike Strong. Copyright 2009 Mike Strong, all rights reserved.
Sequences and Moments
If you don't hear the beat you can't shoot the action
Links to Example Pictures Below
Each of the picture-set links below is an example of using the music beat as a control device for pressing the shutter button, aided by subject knowledge and awaremess of movement.
They are not all chosen as picks. These are here mainly to illustrate part of the process of shooting dance and so some of the warts are shown as well.
Two nights of dress rehearsal same turn sequence
Two Runs, Three Moments each, The Same
Two Months Apart, four exact successive frames
One Dancer, Two Arabesques in a row
Lift Demonstration
8 Successive Turns
Peak Moment on extension
Hops during Indian Classical Dance
Choosing from a set of kicks
Seven Frame Sequence
Bollywood Choreographer in Workshop
Quick Catch for 3 Grand Jetes
Turns Around a Circle for warmup
Hip Hop Rhythms
Michael Jackson on-Toes
Tap Toes
Two dancers in Two frames
Repeated actions or poses
3-Separate Poses
Rehearsal to Performance
Image Sequences - shooting on the music
There is a huge conceit in journalism in general, but even more so in photography. The conceit is largely un-recognized so it continues but it is roughly on the order of, "I show up and take notes" or "I show up and start clicking with the camera" and now I have an accurate picture of what occured.
In other words, just clicking the shutter button and recording an image is assumed to be information gathering. But this is late in the game and just plain wrong. You need to get the information before you start clicking. You need to think of shooting as harvesting data based on information you already have.
When you click the shutter button you are harvesting whatever knowledge you previously planted. If you don't know much you won't get pictures with information. That is what you want. You have to know enough to be able to harvest (shoot and then choose) those moments which represent the dancer, the company, the piece and so forth.
When I first realized that news photographers simply didn't see dance as anything other than some motion in front of the camera to be caught as it came by or as concert photography, I began to formulate tips and tricks I could convey to them about shooting dance. The thought was they would be able to use that information to improve their shots of dancers. These are all good photographers and very competent and I cannot imagine any of them ever wanting to turn out a poor job. But often, they do not have subject knowledge which is nuanced enough. My own background includes journalism, photos and writing.
The upshot was that they didn't seem eager to learn about dance and as I began formulating those tips and tricks I realized there really were no tricks you could learn to get it right. You had to do in order to see. When I took ballroom lessons I became aware of ballroom in ways I could not ever have understood from the "outside."
I need to make this point because this is something that most of you who are dancers have long forgotten or not noticed because you never missed it. Most of you started dance very early and you see and hear things in each dance and each rehearsal that a non-dancer is simply not aware of. So it is easy not to realize what an advantage it is to actually dance, even a little, compared to going at dance photography purely from the outside.
I started dance much too late to expect to have the kind of awareness of all the small things going on in the dance that any working dancer has both unconciously and conciously. My favorite dancer photographers, for the most part, are dancers or former dancers. I see something in their work which catches nuances of movement and position in ways that really show the dance and the dancer's experience. The Lines Ballet calendars by Marty Sohl show this. She is a former dancer.
Tapping Into the photo moment: After my first set of tap lessons I wanted to look at a documentary I had watched just before the lessons. I wasn't trying to compare before and after, I just wanted to see it again. But my experience on viewing the video after a set of lesson immediately became a lesson for me. Suddenly I heard Gene Kelly's taps in a way I could not hear it before the tap lessons.
I realized that although I had heard Kelly tapping before in movies, in truth, I had not really heard his taps. Not until I had "muscle memory" did I get it well enough to hear it and see it. With that I could take photos with an awareness of the architecture of "the moment." That is when I decided "If you don't hear it, you can't see it."
The same kind of thing happened to me after my first ballet lessons. I became visually aware of details of body positions occuring which before had been motion with touch points. Each time I could see a real jump in the quality of my shots. Flamenco was also a leap for me. That is because in Flamenco the dancer decides the rhythm and the musicians must follow the dancers as rhythm setters. Having to clap (palmas) in a counter rhythm to the group notched up my hearing further than before. Now it wasn't just listening to someone else generate rhythm, I had to do it myself. (Note: I have a rhythm-challenged history.)
That is why I think there are no real hints or checklists you can make up unless the photographer is already dancing. It also why I think any dance student interested in photography is perfect for this.You already have a leg up regardless of whether you've taken up photography. Even if you are hiring someone else to photograph, you are the one who really knows what the moments need to look like.
Minimal hints: However, in the interest of increasing the odds of anyone when shooting dance the main rule I have is to really listen to the music, pick out the beat and shoot on the beat. Ballet and Hip Hop are both good candidates for this kind of shooting. With Ballet you should also look for the off beat but if you are already beat-challenged, just try to click the shutter on the beat. This won't get everything but it really will beat the pants off using the "spray and pray" motor-drive method. Yes it is mechanical but at least you are listening while the motor-drive is just robotic and no motor or camera listens to any beat.
If that gets you enough results to get interested and you are a photographer who doesn't dance, start taking dance lessons. Those of us who started dance late are not going to be taking over for Barishnikov but each dance lesson gets leveraged by our long-term photo knowledge. Those of you who are dancers and just learning photography already have the most important part down, personal and inside-the-game knowledge of dance - subject knowledge. Learning the camera is minor, by comparison.
To catch action you need a tool (camera) which will allow you to shoot when you want to shoot. DSLRs can do that. Unfortunately they can also be set to shoot a fast sequence of pictures at machine speed just by pressing and holding the shutter release. That leads to mis-using the camera. I don't know of any camera which can keep time with the rhythm of the music. And that is where the dance's peak moments are located, on the beat and/or on the off beat. A camera set to continuous (motor drive) is almost always going to be somewhere near but not actually on the beat. (nuance this with "The Beat Has Width" below)
You can hear the photographers, including those from the general news media, who think they are giving themselves a better chance to get a shot by using the motor drive concept. People get really impressed by the number of frames per second their camera can shoot. Otherwise referred to here as "spray and pray."
The problem with "spray and pray" (motor-drive) shooting:
- Used because the photographer doesn't know enough to pick when and/or what to shoot
- Almost assures the photographer of NOT having any shots on the action because
- Motor drive cannot keep time with the music
- Does assure the photographer of a large number of exposures to sift through but
- Does not help the photographer recognize what to pick, even when good shots do show up
- So it just creates a ton of extra work without adding knowledge
- That much extra work means your eyes glaze over causing you to short-change your selection
- Which in turn almost assures a less than best photo or photos
The solution, the only real trick (not a trick) boils down to "subject knowledge." Dance is not the only subject requiring subject knowledge in order to be able to shoot the most informed pictures. The best subject knowledge is doing. This is a muscle skill and your brain needs to get muscle knowledge of the event in order to fire those trigger-finger muscles.
For a photographer, each dance lesson goes first to muscle memory and then directly to your trigger finger muscles.
The "Beat" has Width
If you really don't know dance at all but want the best chance at getting decent dance pictures, just listen to the beat and shoot on the beat. It misses nuance but it is probably the only actual hint in this case. (other than get the whole dancer and the whole dance in, no close-ups)
Good Dancers Are Easy To Shoot
The better the dance company or dancer the easier it is to get good shots. But that leaves a lot of turf and here is where you need to use the width of the beat combined with your seat-of-the pants knowledge of what the dancer is doing.
To start with, around Kansas City, KCB is one of the best companies. You should be getting good pictures. If you are not getting good pictures (as recognized by the dancers) then you need to learn more about dance.
When Ailey comes to town they are suberb and they add "hang time." When they hit a pose position they seem to stay there forever, before moving to the next thing they do. That is because all the dancers in Ailey hit what I think of as the leading edge of the beat to get to a position, stay there through a good deal of the width of the beat and then all head to the next rendevous, so to speak, at what I think of as the trailing edge of the beat. All together. So Ailey is especially easy to take still pictures of.
For Occasional Dancers You Will Have to Work Harder
Not so for some of our lesser companies. And that is not meant as a put down. Not all companies are up to the very top level. Many are comprised of office workers, soccer moms and singing waiters (or other jobs). This may not be their full-time gig and they can't get to all rehearsals and classes.
These companies and other small dance groups are the foundation and the life-blood of the dance community. They are not as together, not as "tight" but they are there and they do stand up to dance because they love it. Getting good dance photographs is more of a challenge.
It is much harder to shoot tight shots of loose groups. However, the width of the beat gives you some leeway you can work with. But to use it, you will need to know what you are watching. Usually someone in a group reaches the pose position early ("leading edge" of the beat) and the others get their right after. Often this is accompanied by a slow start to the next position for everyone. And that is your tiny window in which you can get them all together.
Remember, both the dancers and you are looking for the beat. But they aren't getting there at exactly the same time. So, you need to wait until you see the rest of the group about to reach the same position and then you take the shot. With luck the first person will not yet have started on to the next spot. If she does your shot is gone so you can forget it. You don't have the shot.
But you didn't have the shot anyway because only the first person would have been fully into position and everyone else would have looked ragged so no point in taking it. Waiting that extra split part of a beat just means you are being selective about shooting keepers rather than shooting throw aways.
For the Kids, look for their best
In some ways there is more leeway because the kids are not expected to be up to the performance level of full-time professionals. But that is no excuse for shooting bent legs (when they should be straight) or in-between body positions (rather than peak poses) or other bobbles. They are working hard to remember all they need in order to get it right. You should work harder to show their efforts and, if you know what it should look like, the kids should come out looking good. This is the result of your own dancing (at whatever level) combined with what you are used to from the pro companies. Once again subject knowledge is the key to good dance photos.
Subject Knowlege In General
Although we are talking about dance and subject knowledge this is not limited to dancing. I've seen the same thing happen in other areas. For example in a database job I had, my position was to have taken over from programmer contractors who were finishing a large job of designing software for their business of selling heavy-equipment construction parts across the world. It had to allow large listings for wholesalers (rather than the simpler shopping cart software you are used to) and then it had to control the purchase, inventory, picking, packing, shipping process from multiple locations and a lot more. This company had already written its home-grown software which worked, but this special-build was supposed to be a pro job.
As always, understand what the dance is doing, listen to the music, click the shutter button based on that knowledge using the music and adjust your timing to match the dancer's position as you are aware of his position.
This does not mean mechanically clicking the shutter with the beat of the music, or on the off beat. It does mean using the beat to get to the best place to shoot and using your awareness of the dance to further adjust the timing to get the position just right. If you dance you have an advantage because you are implicitly aware of small details taking place.
Still-Photo Sequences as Exercises
I will often shoot dancers before performance as they do piques simply because it is the best way I can think of to get my timing up to speed. It is a type of shooting exercise and really helps prepare me to shoot more. You should be able to shoot a series of exposures in which they are all - or almost all - good. Do not count on shooting a couple of hundred exposures hoping to get one shot. If you don't know any better than that what to shoot you also don't know any better than that what to pick. If you are confused please ask the dancers. You will learn a lot. Listen to them and really ask for their judgement. It can only improve what you are doing.
Getting Behind
Don't try to shoot everything. You can't, and many movements will repeat. Never feel that you need to catch everything or that you ever need to catch up to get the action. You can't. If something goes past you, it is gone. If you are feeling pressed to get more, don't. Stop. Wait for the music and listen to it. Settle into the music and shoot on the beat. Don't ever try to catch up. You can't shoot faster to get it right. Shoot more deliberately to a better success rate.
Examples For Learning
Let's take a look at several photo sequences and some variations. The sets of pictures below are not all pictures I either picked to use or would pick. The pictures below are here for educational purposes to show my "process" in shooting and so it includes a number of shots I would not pick.
Remember, the camera doesn't show "facts" so much as it reveals your subject knowledge or lack thereof.
Unless otherwise noted all text, pictures, captures and illustrations are by Mike Strong. Copyright 2009 Mike Strong, all rights reserved.
Two Nights of Dress and the same turns
Sleeping Beauty: Study from two dress rehearsals (Thursday night across bottom and Friday night across top) (for Saturday's 2pm and 7pm performances) showing Danny Ryan at points through his turning jetés in a circle. Each frame number is listed. Frame 8064 at top I shot a bit late and I deleted frame 6618 before I thought to put together this composite. It seems to me I am also missing at least one frame somewhere when my buffer filled up and wouldn't let me shoot until later.
Two Runs, Three Moments each, The Same Movements
This shows two run throughs of Offenbach and the Underworld, the Can-Can piece.
The first run through is shown in the first three (top two and middle left) and the second run through is shown in the last three.
This illustrates the consistency in getting the identical moments which are non-sequential. Again, this is a matter of attending rehearsal, watching more than you shoot and learning the piece.
One Dancer, Two Arabesques in a row
This dancer performed two arabesques in a row. I simply pasted both exposures together in a single image. Note her consistency and the movement to the left between arabesques (the left side is second of the two).
Lift Demonstration
John and Amanda are showing the workshop a lift technique the regular way (with a hand grip) and the Tudor way with a straight arm and no supporting grip. This set is not greatly consistent because these are two methods, off the cuff, but they do show the mechanical steps for comparison.
8 Successive Turns
Here Mark Geiringer performs a set of fouettes. All of these frames are exactly as they came from the camera (except for the cropping to fit them together more closely) with no missing frames and no missing fouettes. Unless you look closely you might think this is one frame printed eight times. But you will see small variations from frame to frame. The largest may be the foot angle on # 8229.. I've included the actual camera frame numbers with each image. In either case, this is an illustration of shooting in a consistent way at max relevé in his turn.
This is also an example of an exercise I do on a regular basis to get in tune with the way the dancers are moving. It is part of my own warm up.
Two Months Apart, four exact successive frames
In this double set the dark background was shot in April 2011 at the UMKC Spring Concert. This is Alyssa Gold in Dark Elegies by Antony Tudor. Notice the frame numbers are in succession. No missing frames. Only four shots were taken. Two months later, the 25th of June, Alyssa reprised the role for a lecture demonstration during the introduction of the Tudor Curriculum at a CORPS de Ballet Conference. Again, there were exactly four frames shot (see the numbers under the pictures). They match exactly with those taken two months before.
I should note that while I did shoot the same four shots again (mainly because Alyssa is a dependably solid and consistent performer) I also made exactly the same mistake the second time. You are seeing four jetes. There were five. In both cases I managed to miss the first one, by fiddling with camera adjustments.
Peak Moment Extension
Illustration (using video frame captures) of a peak moment - the place at which the motion changes direction. At that time the Canon GL2 video camera's shutter speed of only 1/60th second is able to resolve the action clearly. The rest of the time we see motion blur.
Click on Play button to View
3 min 31 sec example - If player doesn't display the video click here to view the video
Here is an active demo of showing a rehearsal and the stills shot at each pique
Example from Giselle rehearsal
Click on Play button to View
3 min 31 sec example - If player doesn't display the video click here to view the videoI was shooting at the rehearsal before performance and had a new video recorder for the Sony FX1000 that I needed to test.
So I set it up next to me while I worked on stills. Much later I realized that I had footage with shutter sounds which I could
use as an example of shooting on the beat. I don't have all the frames because by the time it occured to me to marry the
stills with the video I had already gotten rid of out-of-focus or whatever frames. So, in some places I just show the frame number
which would be there. Had I known I would be using this as an example I would have worked a little closer but this serves anyway.
Hip Hop
Return to top of this document
Hip Hop works heavily on the beat so shooting on the music in Hip Hop will yield results like the shots below. These are not in frame-by-frame sequences but they do show the value of listening rather than trying to catch action you already see going. By that time it is too late. You have to shoot with your eyes inside your ears - so to speak.
Again, the same warning about the "motor-drive" non-sense. Just don't You will miss everything and in particular you won't be able to get the close-together moments because the motor drive in the camera will have taken over.
Micah Clements (low, black hat) and Albert Burnes (up, white hat)
Here Micah is noticing me and making slight adjustments to avoid landing on me.
He looks farther from me than he is because of the extreme wide angle lens I am using.
Repeated Poses
In addition to sequences there are moments of catching the same pose at different times. This can be a pose from rehearsal and one from performance or a couple of shots in the same performance or the same rehearsal. In either case it is also important to get as much time in at rehearsals as possible. Think of the dancers' rehearsals being as much for the dancers as it is for you, as a photographer. The more you know about what is coming up, the better you will shoot the dance.
Catching Poses
Return to top of this document
Frame: nicPlynsn_379a.jpNicole English teaching a class in Polynesian dance.
This is not a series exactly, although the two frames below are shot one after the other (frame numbers: 379 [left], 392, 393 [below]).
However, again, shooting for the count gets you a similar spot or movement. A lot of moves repeat in various ways. If you use motor-drive techniques you will be certain to miss the shots.
Each is a separate shot of a separate movement (the two below are not two quick shots of the same pose, they really are two poses, each at their peak moment).
Always, watch to see what is happening and shoot where the dance is, within the rhythm.
Frame: nicPlynsn_392a.jpg
Frame: nicPlynsn_393a.jpg
Ingredients for a Photo Essay
In a group of photos you want to be able to express what occured and express the sense and the atmosphere of an event or place or person or whatever and whoever your subject is. In this Argentine tango workshop in May 1999 there are a number of photographs. For the most part any of them is usable, though a couple don't work out of context and my preferred ones carry an atmospheric context by themselves. I include all of them here as examples of usage.
This was put on by Liz O'Keefe at Kim Shope's Midtown School of Dance on 39th street (closed down in 2007) and the original Fahrenheit Gallery owned by Peregrine Hoenig with a public demo at The Hurricane featuring Liz and the workshop organizer Diego Alvaro who was touring the US at the time. Diego had been a tango teacher of Liz's in Argentina and when she realized he might be available at the same time as her workshop she contacted him to expand the workshop. Peregrine's Fahrenheit was then in a warehouse loft near the train tracks in the west bottoms. She later moved it to another location in the west bottoms in a former bar and nightclub.
Most of the photos are using a Leica M2 with 35mm F/2 Summicron on Fuji 400 color negative film. The Overall shot of the room below, at night, is with a 20mm lens on a Nikon F.
Here is the URL to that page: http://www.kcdance.com/Dancing/TangoWrkShpMasMay99.htm (opens in a new window, when you are on the internet). A word about the page size: this was in the days of POS (Plain Old phone System) when we were still struggling to get 36kb or better 56kb modem speed. So the page size and picture size were very limited. A 30kb size page would take 8 seconds to download. So file size (page weight) was always an important consideration.
Christine Brebs and Mitch. That is Beau Bledsoe in the background center left.
Liz O'Keefe and Diego Alvaro giving a demo in the Hurricane in Westport - May 1999
Christine Brebs and me (photo with my camera by Beau Bledsoe). A rare shot of me as I normally keep myself off the website, believing the KCDance.Com website to be about others in the dance community in general, not about me. Out of thousands of photo files on the site I have three of four with me and maybe two of them with me dancing, this being one. - May 1999
Duo Lorca playing to the tango workshop crowd. This is the saturday night party. Duo Lorca consisted of Christine Brebs on violin and Beau Bledsoe on classical guitar. Peregrine Hoenig is in the chair at dead center of the picture, near the column. - May 1999The tech data: Fuji 400 color negative film. Nikon F with 20mm lens and a combination of available light and a light fill strobe on the camera
Nate and Julia - May 1999In the above pictures we see on the right what too often we get as a photograph in the paper. There is no way on knowing what kind of dance they are doing in this close. On the right is a cropping from the same picture. No there really is no way of knowing even that they are dancing. In either case we show a relationship between two people and either picture is nice. I like them both.
This brings up a couple of pictures from the Kansas City Star at the same period that I still remember. One of a tango class at Fedora's (which Liz opened up, and the later owner, George Brett, closed down to covert Fedora's to a sports bar, ugh! - culture?). The star had a couple pictured from the waist up in a practice position, identified them as doing Argentine Tango. But clearly this photographer had not a clue of the difference between the practice position and the much more engaged regular dance position/posture. There is a considerable difference and you really need to whole body to convey the information. Also they had an article about Louis Bar showing him with his partner at the time in a show-tango position, also not knowing the difference between social, salon styles and show styles.
Within the context of the other pictures this is equivalent to a cutaway in film or video. It gives us a nice change of pace and we know they are doing Argentine Tango because we place this picture with the others. But in order to say anything about the workshop and the type of dance, neither of these pictures says tango without a cutline explaining in text what is taking place.
We could stop here, especially if this is an article about this particular workshop or maybe about this teacher/promoter. But we could include more if the article / photo essay is about Argentine Tango in general. As illustration here are a few more tango shots. The first ones are from a tango workshop in July 1999 at Ballroom Unlimited (Perry Gingerich) given by Roxanne McKenney from St. Louis. Here is KCDance webpage the URL: http://www.kcdance.com/Dancing/TangoBUMcKenneyJuly1999.htm (again, opens in a new window and you need to be on the internet) - Dancing with her was Carter Maier.
Above, Roxanne and Carter demonstrating tango walks - an essential foundation to Argentine tango salon - July 1999
