MIND THE DANCE - PERFORMANCE PHOTOGRAPHY
Mind The Dance
At the start of October we spent 3 days in Leeds photographing Mind The Dance, a small dance performance created by Karma Dance CIC. Dance is always a fascinating subject for photography, especially when the performance is full of intense emotion and movement!
For our first day we went over to Dance Studio Leeds to see the show for ourselves and to test shoot. Having knowledge on what you are photographing is very beneficial, especially for performances where there will be specific moments that are crucial to capture. We were able to test angles for getting shots and experiment without the restrictions of space.
Promotional Material
The company needed some marketing shots for their promotional materials so we organised to take some staged dance shots on the main stage at The Carriageworks Theatre. This shoot was about capturing part of the essence of the performance, a thoughtful and powerful 3 piece performance exploring themes such as mental health, identity, sexuality and hearing loss.
We worked with three of the dancers and experimented with angles and techniques for capturing the desired shot. With two photographers present, we were both able to capture the shots from different angles, whether one of us stood and the other on the floor or stood at different sides.
Final Day
Our final day consisted of capturing the dress run, headshots and the final show throughout the afternoon and evening. In the dress run, we were able to move about more freely which allowed for more intimate shots of the dancers. The dress run was also a great way for us to see what lighting we were working with, for example red lighting and spotlights. Stage lighting is often very challenging to work with and the best way to combat this is by keeping the aperture wide to allow more light into the image and a shutter speed around 1/80-1/400 to keep everything in focus.
Between the dress run and final performance we worked with each dancer to capture dance headshots. These differed from normal headshots as the focus was to capture shots where it looked like the individuals were dancing but the face was visible. This meant we had to work with the dancers to make sure their individual poses worked for capturing their faces. We were also working with limited lighting (by this we mean a stage light to one side) so we had to direct the individuals to stand in the best spot.
Around 7pm when the cast were getting ready, we took the opportunity to get some group photos and then got in position on either side of the theatre for the final show. For the final show, we had to walk around quietly but had more room then expected to capture photos. Unfortunately, the show had to be altered last minute due to sickness but luckily we had pictures of everyone from the dress run so captured both versions of the performance.
Overall, this was a great experience and our first show together as a duo! We made the decision to keep on top of the editing and look at the photos from each day individually so the wait time for the photos was lowered. As a duo, we edit our individual photos but keep them aligned in one editing style. Our style is more lowkey and we don’t like to over edit so our main focus is on colour correction and choosing the best photos. We also keep tabs on what photos we are choosing so that we are covering every important moment from the event. The cast of Mind The Dance were incredible and lovely to work with, we appreciated being invited to photograph such a unique and interesting show.
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