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<html lang='en'><head><meta charset='utf-8' /><meta name='pinterest' content='nopin' /><link href='../../../../static/css/style.css' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' /><link href='../../../../static/css/print.css' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' media='print' /><title>Shooting Girl Jam / Steve Losh</title></head><body><header><a id='logo' href='https://stevelosh.com/'>Steve Losh</a><nav><a href='../../../index.html'>Blog</a> - <a href='https://stevelosh.com/projects/'>Projects</a> - <a href='https://stevelosh.com/photography/'>Photography</a> - <a href='https://stevelosh.com/links/'>Links</a> - <a href='https://stevelosh.com/rss.xml'>Feed</a></nav></header><hr class='main-separator' /><main id='page-blog-entry'><article><h1><a href='index.html'>Shooting Girl Jam</a></h1><p class='date'>Posted on April 29th, 2008.</p><p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/sjl7678/2450406138/" title="GirlJamSaturday-5383 by Steve Losh, on Flickr">
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<img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3009/2450406138_473b84b17b_m.jpg" width="240" height="161" alt="GirlJamSaturday-5383" class="left">
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</a></p>
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<p>This past weekend (April 25-28) was <a href="http://jojojackson.com/NEGJ/Home.html">Northeast Girl Jam</a> in Rochester, New
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York. Girl Jam is a swing dancing workshop weekend that focuses on classes for
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the followers. It was a huge success; we had a lot of people attend and
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everyone seemed to have a great time. The dances had a ton of energy and the
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late night parties were wonderful (as always).</p>
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<p>I took a bunch of photographs over the course of the weekend, mostly during
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the performances and competitions. Once I posted them I got a bunch of
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questions asking me how I did it, so I figured I'd write here about it in more
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detail. I used different techniques each day so I'll go through them one by
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one.</p>
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<h2>Friday</h2>
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<p>My goal for the first two nights was to get images with the dancers sharp
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enough to recognize but with enough blur to convey the feeling of movement and
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energy in the room. I started playing with this technique at the blues parties
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in the past and I think I'm really starting to get the hang of it.</p>
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<p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/sjl7678/2449562969/" title="GirlJamFriday-4873 by Steve Losh, on Flickr">
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<img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2349/2449562969_68c82066e8_m.jpg" width="161" height="240" alt="GirlJamFriday-4873" class="left">
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</a></p>
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<p>On Friday I only had one of my flashes with me, so I had to make some
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tradeoffs. I bounced the flash from the ceiling to get more even lighting
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(directional light from a bare flash is usually too harsh), but since the
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ceilings in Tango Cafe are so high it took a lot of power. I wound up shooting
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at ISO 1600 and 3200 for most of the night so that my flash could be on a
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lower power setting and fire faster. Even at that ISO the noise isn't really
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that bad since the photos are exposed well (thanks to the flash). This photo
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was shot at ISO 3200 and I don't think the noise distracts from the image much
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at all.</p>
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<p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/sjl7678/2449565301/" title="GirlJamFriday-4943 by Steve Losh, on Flickr">
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<img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2186/2449565301_e2491e6b7a_m.jpg" width="240" height="161" alt="GirlJamFriday-4943" class="right">
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</a></p>
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<p>I was using a wide angle lens (18mm) so that I could get entire bodies into
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the frame. One of the things I love about Lindy Hop is that it really uses the
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entire body which this photo really shows off. Cropping off huge parts of
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people in every single shot makes that much harder to see. I set the aperture
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to about f/4 and that gave me enough depth of field to get most things in
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focus at 18mm. I set the shutter speed depending on the amount of ambient
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light; it varied from 1/30 to 1/4 or so.</p>
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<p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/sjl7678/2450392386/" title="GirlJamFriday-5007 by Steve Losh, on Flickr">
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<img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2410/2450392386_a61067e07f_m.jpg" width="161" height="240" alt="GirlJamFriday-5007" class="left">
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</a></p>
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<p>The trick that really made a difference in taking good photos is that once I
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set the exposure I stopped looking at the camera entirely. I didn't review my
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shots as I took them and I didn't even look through the viewfinder to compose.
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Using a wide lens meant that I could just point the camera in the general
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direction of the dancers and still get them. I took this photo at the late
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night and the camera was held against my ribs as I did.</p>
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<p>Why did I do that? I can perfectly compose an image but if the dancers aren't
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doing something interesting it's going to be a boring photo. I've been dancing
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long enough that I'm starting to be able to predict when something cool will
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happen in a dance, but that only works if I'm paying complete attention to it.
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Messing with the camera distracts me and I can only get the most obvious
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moments. Ignoring the camera and watching the dancers means I can pick up more
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subtle parts of the dance and capture those (as well as the obvious ones).</p>
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<h2>Saturday</h2>
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<p>On Saturday I brought along two flashes to the dance and had Sergey hold one
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while I held the other (thanks Sergey!). Two flashes means twice as much
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light, which means I can shoot with recycle times twice as fast and have more
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even light coverage.</p>
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<p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/sjl7678/2450405794/" title="GirlJamSaturday-5379 by Steve Losh, on Flickr">
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<img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2227/2450405794_940545d63d_m.jpg" width="161" height="240" alt="GirlJamSaturday-5379" class="left">
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</a></p>
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<p>Since I was able to shoot twice as many photos I was able to experiment with
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getting up close. Using a wide angle lens let me get most of the dancers in
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the frame when super close and allowed me to play around with really
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interesting perspectives. This photo is one of my favorites from the weekend.
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Getting really close to Nina means that the distance between her and Carl is
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exaggerated and adds to the sense of tension. Once again, the flashes freeze
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the dancers and the ambient light burns in a bit of blur to add some movement.
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This photo was also shot at ISO 1600 but the noise is definitely not the main
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focus of this picture. As long as you don't underexpose noise is usually not a
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problem in these kind of photos.</p>
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<p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/sjl7678/2450404742/" title="GirlJamSaturday-5349 by Steve Losh, on Flickr">
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<img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2256/2450404742_3d9a3df777_m.jpg" width="161" height="240" alt="GirlJamSaturday-5349" class="right">
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</a></p>
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<p>Not only did I try getting up close, I also tried varying my angle more than I
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usually do. I usually brace the camera against my ribs when taking these kinds
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of photos for a few reasons:</p>
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<ul>
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<li>It's a safe height that will get the whole dancer in the frame.</li>
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<li>My ribs are vertical and so aligning the camera with them means that it's
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not wildly tilted up or down and I don't accidentally get ceiling- or
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floor-only photos.</li>
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<li>It keeps the camera close to my body where it's much less likely to be
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whacked by a stray limb.</li>
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</ul>
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<p>Getting lower and higher gives me different perspectives that can have really
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nifty results. The problem is that it's much harder to know if the subject is
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completely (or even mostly) in the frame when the camera is in an awkward
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position. To get a photo like this I probably shot four or five at strange
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angles that I deleted.</p>
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<p>One other fun thing to notice: you can see Sergey holding the flash right to
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the left of her hips. I probably could have cloned out the flare in Photoshop
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but I don't think it really detracts from the image much at all.</p>
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<h2>Sunday</h2>
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<p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/sjl7678/2449592347/" title="GirlJamSunday-5647 by Steve Losh, on Flickr">
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<img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3066/2449592347_6a17602cd9_m.jpg" width="161" height="240" alt="GirlJamSunday-5647" class="left">
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</a></p>
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<p>On Sunday I shot at a few of the workshops since there wasn't a dance. A
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workshop has a very different feeling than a dance and so I didn't want to try
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the same approach as the other two nights. Instead of using flash and a wide
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lens I switched to a fast normal lens (my 50mm f/1.4). The light coming
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through the windows was bright enough that I was able to shoot at around 1/60
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at f/2 or f/2.8 and ISO 800 or 1600.</p>
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<p>Once again the noise isn't much of a problem because the photos are exposed
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well as this picture shows. The shutter speed is just slow enough to get some
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blur at the ends of the limbs but not enough to lose all detail.</p>
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<p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/sjl7678/2449590741/" title="GirlJamSunday-5512 by Steve Losh, on Flickr">
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<img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2076/2449590741_b47a5ced4c_m.jpg" width="161" height="240" alt="GirlJamSunday-5512" class="right">
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</a></p>
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<p>Since I was using a normal lens instead of a wide angle I had to mostly
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abandon the idea of getting big group photos and instead try to capture
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individual people as they learned. Using a wide aperture let me isolate the
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people from the sea of arms and legs in the backgrounds and gave the images a
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soft quality that helps reflect the feeling of the afternoon.</p>
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<p>I really like the soft-yet-directional light that came from the big stained
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glass windows combined with the overhead lights. Lately I've been using flash
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a lot in my photography and it was fun to get back to using natural light. I'm
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going to try to practice with it more in the near future.</p>
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<h2>Overall</h2>
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<p>Northeast Girl Jam was awesome. I had a great time dancing and photographing
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and got to see a lot of old friends (and meet new ones). If you're sad you
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missed it there's another event in Rochester next month: <a href="http://stompology.com/">Stompology</a>. It's
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a weekend of solo jazz and Charleston workshops and awesome swing dances.</p>
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<p>If you'd like to see the rest of the photos I took this weekend I posted them
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on <a href="http://flickr.com/photos/sjl7678/collections/72157604785390431/">Flickr</a>. Feel free to comment there or find me on <a href="http://twitter.com/stevelosh/">Twitter</a>;
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advice/questions/comments are always appreciated!</p>
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</article></main><hr class='main-separator' /><footer><nav><a href='https://github.com/sjl/'>GitHub</a> ・ <a href='https://twitter.com/stevelosh/'>Twitter</a> ・ <a href='https://instagram.com/thirtytwobirds/'>Instagram</a> ・ <a href='https://hg.stevelosh.com/.plan/'>.plan</a></nav></footer></body></html> |