Dance Workshop

[Mata]

This set I was out to capture movement and symmetry of the body.

The second shot I have titled ‘running on air’ and you can see why.

This one shot more or less took up the whole session (2 hours). I was after some precise angels of the limbs and is almost perfect accept for the front arm, which should have been around 45 deg angle. Not an easy thing to do but the dancer in question was brilliant. She was happy and willing to continue until we captured the shot.

Needs more work in processing to polish it?

[Mike Farley]

I especially like the first shot in the last series, although I would be tempted to give the subject a bit more space above her left hand; she looks a bit cramped. Similarly with the third one I would not have her foot quite so close to the edge of the frame and I would be tempted to use a more rectangular format to give the model a bit more room to move into.

In a couple of the other shots, you have cropped a hand in one and the orange material in another, which looks a bit awkward. I am not sure whether we need to see all of the orange cloth which is being swirled, but we definitely need the rest of the hand.

Thanks for sharing.

[Mata]

It is actually difficult to shoot dance movement in a small studio setting. The only option the photographer has is to move forward or backward in order to keep the backdrop in line. Moving sideways and even pointing the camera upwards catches the lights or ceiling props. The dances don’t stay centred when moving and jumping so catching them in a frame is quite difficult. The other issue is the studio lights. You can’t take a burst of three or four images quickly as the bulbs over heat and die. I have done that a number of times and that hasn’t gone down to well with the studio.

I am already thinking of doing something in the future in a larger studio or even a stage.

[Mike Farley]

It is actually difficult to shoot dance movement in a small studio setting. The only option the photographer has is to move forward or backward in order to keep the backdrop in line. Moving sideways and even pointing the camera upwards catches the lights or ceiling props. The dances don’t stay centred when moving and jumping so catching them in a frame is quite difficult. The other issue is the studio lights. You can’t take a burst of three or four images quickly as the bulbs over heat and die. I have done that a number of times and that hasn’t gone down to well with the studio.

I am already thinking of doing something in the future in a larger studio or even a stage.

Yes, a confined space is limiting in such circumstances and often there is not much that you can do if you crop the image in camera unless you have something from another image to construct a composite.

For the other shots where you have a plain border, there is something you can do if you have Photoshop CS/CC. There might be a way of doing something similar in Elements, most likely using the Clone or Healing Brush tools in place of the Content Aware Fill step.

• Expand the canvas area, preferably using a fill colour that contrasts with the background.
• Use the Magic Wand tool to select the new canvas area.
• Expand the slection by 1 pixel. This ensures that there is no line visible after the next step, which can sometimes happen.
• Use the Fill tool on its Content Aware setting which extends what is at the edge of the frame, in this case the background colour, to the selection and often gives good results.
• Depending on how close elements are to the edge of the frame in the original picture, you might get them reproduced in the extended area. Usually they can be simply removed with the Clone tool.

This also works for other images which you wish to expand and has allowed me to salvage a misframed shot on occasion, but the outcome very much depends on what is happening at the edge of the frame.

[Mata]

Thanks for taking the time Mike. Much appreciated

[Mike Farley]

Thanks for taking the time Mike. Much appreciated

No problem, that's one of the things the forum is for. I hope that it helps you and others.