Bobby Watson with his score for Gates Barbeque

This shows the sequence of two photos in the tables below as successive frames leading to the final frame which we manipulate in Photoshop to get the ending result.

The background is a curtain with wall and barre.

In each final piece the gray curtain is extended to the full extent of the picture.

We are shooting with a studio strobe setup.

No! It is sharp and detailed though, thanks to the strobes.

Naw, we want more dance. This could be office workers just as easily.

Not really. Still static. Otherwise okay and would have been easy to adjust the curtain.

hunh-uh

Photo Idea #1 - Sequence of 3 shots

1

Frame #1
Shooting way too soon and placement not good

2

Frame #2
Shooting a tad late and placement way off

3

Frame #3
Shooting is right on and placement is good

3a

Set up working layers in Photoshop separating image and background, then extend the grey curtains into the upper area of the picture and finally adjust color, tonal levels, contrast, sharpness and so forth.

Photo Idea #2 - Sequence of 5 Shots

1

Frame #1
Timing okay but Winston's arm is cutoff and so is DeeAnna's foot and toes. Too bad about the framing because it would have been usable otherwise.

2

Frame #2
Shooting late - elevation is a little down as are legs

3

Frame #3
Ouch! feet cutoff - also hands can go higher so we are a tad early.

4

Frame #4
Big improvement on placement but shot is a tad early. Winston's hands do go a little higher and straighter. Shoot again.

5

Frame #5
Good spot. This is where I saw Winston's hands just after shooting before (on 2 previous). Legs are tucked up higher. Usable. See adjustments below.

5a

Set up working layers to cut out people from background then extend the grey curtain in back. Finally merge down, adjust levels, color, sharpness, contrast and burn outer areas.

A Note About Using Strobes (Electronic Flash) for Action

Just because electronic flash is a very fast burst of light, essentially giving you a very fast shutter speed by turning the light on and then off very quickly (from abotu 1/400th of a second for very slow units to 1/10,000th of a second or less), strobes should never be used to substitute for clicking the camera button at the right moment. Strobes should be used only to enhance that moment.

1 - As far as knowing the right moment to shoot, it doesn't change just because you can "freeze" someone in mid flight. You still need to do the "freeze" at the right moment, not any old moment in the air.

2 - Strobe should be used to enhance the moment, never to create the moment

- - SO - -

1 - Strobe increases detail by eliminating the small blur of movement even at the peak moment

2 - With detail you also get more area in focus (depth of field) because you have more light meaning that you stop down

3 - Strobe gives better color because it gives more and better light in a daylight range

4 - Strobe gives a longer tonal range because with the extra light you are able to use low ISO settings

5 - Strobe also means (minus point) you have to do each shot at intervals of 2-seconds or more because it takes that long for a set of strobes to re-charge each time after they fire. Unlike continuous lighting in which you can shoot as fast as your camera will let you shoot.

So basically you are shooting in a controlled environment in which the dance action isn't dance action, it is just a single set of chosen moments which are repeated until you have the shot you want. That is why some of these studio shots do not have the same feel as performance photos. They can really look like so much wall paper.

3a

This is the same peak moment we could get with regular lights, but the strobe helps to fix the moment sharply

5a

Again Strobe allows us to add stopage in the peak moment along with detail and tonal range (note Winston's black-stripe pants and the white score with line detail in Bobby's hands)