One of the common refrains among photography forums is “get out there and shoot”. This is usually in response to someone asking questions like “which lens is best?” and “what should my settings be for shooting in a park?” etc. The response, get out there and shoot, is typically meant as encouragement, a la Nike, to just do it. Photography is as much about practice as it is about knowledge.

Yesterday I had a choice: I could either watch one of my favorite photographers doing a live broadcast of a class, or I could go shoot a bunch of teenagers at a middle school dance. I had arranged with one of the organizers to do something like prom formals, but in a moment of self-doubt I wondered if anyone would care if I was there. These were 12-14 year olds at a dance–I would just be an old guy in the way.

Then I reminded myself of a comment I’d made to a friend recently–I feel like my technical competence has reached a decent level, I just need more subjects. So I stuck to my loose commitment to take pictures at the dance, and I’m glad I did. Full set here.

I set up my white seamless background in the lunch run on the floor just under the dance, in a simple two light set-up: one on the background, another into an umbrella. The seamless I own right now is only 54″ wide and is perfect for one or two people (if they’re friendly) but doesn’t work at all for groups. When the first onslaught came down for some pictures, it was a group of about 20 kids, and they all wanted to be in the same shot. I told them no more than two at a time, but I was overruled as the four teens above got into position. I very quickly had to let go of the idea that my background had to be perfect–the kids were there to have fun together, and therefore my images would be about their friendships, not whether the background was perfect. In pretty short order I was up to 14 kids in a single shot. The kids kept coming down, group after group after group. Some wanted to be goofy, some more reserved. My fear that none of them would be interested quickly gave way to a bit of perspiration.

Then this kid describes a series of poses he wanted to do, and I decided to make it more dark and dramatic.

And that gave way to more dramatic lighting shots…

This young woman really enjoyed employing inappropriate hand gestures in her pictures (most of which haven’t been posted).
After 90 minutes of shooting in the lunch room, I decided to put the DIY diffuser on the flash and the flash on my camera and head up to the dance floor.

The girls ate it up–group after group were posing so I would take more pictures, and that was fun, but I wanted movement and action. So I had the group above jumping, and the boy perfectly anticipated the shot and went sliding through.
I also worked my way into the midst of the kids dancing, for more action.

And then I opened up the shutter speed to capture more movement.

And that brings me to the shot that lead this post. I’ll repeat it again…

Two years ago I might have deleted this image. Today, I like it a lot because it shows the passion and movement at the dance. I like how the kids are a mix of blur and crisp–for example, the center bottom girl’s eyes are in focus behind a veil of motion-blurred color.

The remaining challenge for the photography was what to do with the images. While I was doing the more formal shots, I was handing kids a small piece of paper with the address for a specific page on my website. I created the page as a placeholder because I hadn’t decided what to do, but I knew once I decided, I could edit the page and direct visitors to the appropriate location.

I had several options for posting the images: facebook, flickr, shutterfly for prints, or my own webhost. I seriously doubt these kids want prints. They live their lives almost entirely in the digital realm. Putting them on my own host would make it easy for me, but the kids would have to go through some steps to put them on their own profiles in facebook. So I decided to post them to facebook publicly for the kids, and on flickr in case there are families out there that don’t approve of their kids using facebook.

So, what did I learn from the experience?

• That the kids would really enjoy the process of having their pictures taken. Around 80 kids voluntarily came to the portrait setup I had, many of them making multiple trips
• My thought with the white background was that it would not look like a dance floor. If I were to do that again, I think I would need a 9 foot wide roll.
• Another possible idea would be to simulate the dance-floor effect and shoot in an open space with a gelled flash behind the group shooting toward the camera and a more direct main light above and behind the camera. I could probably make the lunch room nearly disappear to black with that kind of setup, but I’d definitely have to test it out.
• I still need to figure out what to do with hands, especially for girls in a more formal pose.
• Despite my worries, I had a blast.

OK, I know I just recently wrote an entire post on how faces are important. But I just couldn’t resist this photo. This was during a cub scout outing to go bowling. The picture above violates my usual rule to kill an image if the face of the subject is obscured. But I like the way the faces of my son and his friend are being obscured–arms pointing to what’s on-screen.

My son had just bowled his first ever Turkey–three strikes in a row.

This weekend started for Anne and me on Thursday at Byrne’s Pub with the Adam Ezra Group and Enter the Haggis. We’d first seen Enter the Haggis at the Dublin Irish Festival. This was a night out for the two of us, so I didn’t take any cameras except the one on my phone.

We’d never heard of the Adam Ezra Group and I was really impressed by their sound check. For some reason I felt a bit emboldened and introduced myself to a couple of the guys after the sound check. I didn’t approach in a marketing frame of mind–instead I approached them because a) I really did like their sound, and b) I felt a moment of compassion for guys traveling to a small bar in a mid-west town playing to an audience that had never hear of them before. They turned out to be very personable and seemed to appreciate that I had introduced myself. Their full set did not disappoint–it was great singer-songwriter material, and I really liked the passion that Adam and Turtle brought to the performance. Unfortunately, I’m no music critic, so you’ll just have to go listen to stuff from their website to get a better handle on their music. Of course they had CDs for sale, but they didn’t have a set price on them. Their philosophy, much like my brother-in-law’s, is that they want people to have their music. So they had a box labeled “I Love You” where people could throw so money in exchange for CDs. The amount of money was up to the listener. I grabbed a full-length CD, View from the Root, and a short three-song eponymous CD in exchange for $20.

Enter the Haggis played next, and their performance did not disappoint. The crowd wasn’t as big as I had anticipated, but maybe the $10 cover on a Thursday night scared off some of the crowd. During their set break, I was surprised to find the “headliners” in the back of the bar, near the restrooms, hanging out among themselves rather than mingling with the crowd. So I went back, introduced myself, and gave them a bit of a ribbing. They told me that they were expecting the true fans to follow them back, and that, Congratulations, I was their first true fan of the night. Anne joined me in chatting with the band, so we had someone snap this crappy cell phone pic.

During the day, Anne and I did some grocery shopping, but after dinner went our separate ways. Anne went to book club, and I went to see Racecar for my second time. I shot a previous performance, and I did a set of promo photos. Though they didn’t specifically ask me to shoot this performance, I decided I wanted to give it a shot. Plus Andy, the lead singer, is so passionate about his performance, it is hard to not shoot it.

Of course his passion was through the roof, but getting decent shots in the “venue” was a serious pain in the butt. Similar to many bars in the city, the lighting is crappy, and very dim, at best. This shot was at 6400 ISO, f/3.5, and 1/25s. The performers were top lit by christmas lights, and back lit by the rope lights. The camera couldn’t focus on their faces, and I could barely see well enough to take a stab at manual focus. After the performance I finally learned why I couldn’t get the camera or flash to use the AF Assist lamp, but that is the topic of another post. So I ended up with a majority of my images out of focus. Including this one.

But I kept this one because a) it shows the background of band stickers, and b) there’s some tension in having Andy’s menacing face out of focus. I like the result.

I’m having a hard time thinking of why I like some of these images, so I’ll just post here a few more of my favorites from the set.

The last photo is something I’ve come to really enjoy about the small band music scene–a lot of it is very intimate. The fans are right in the faces of the performers, and the performers will get spit on the fans if they aren’t careful. And it means you can actually talk to folks between sets.

Saturday was spent with friends playing Dungeons and Dragons and watching football. How’s that for blasting your stereotypes of D&D nerds? Married couples who can role play, drink some beer, eat some chili, and cheer-on the Buckeyes to victory.

Sunday we went to my grandparents’ church where my grandmother was honored for her 90th birthday. It was a pleasant service for a vibrant and growing congregation. Afterward we took a picture of the gathered family.

The designated photographer (someone from the church) first took a picture with her camera, then picked up mine. I had set it to full auto and only had to instruct her to look through the viewfinder. She pressed the shutter and was clearly used to a point-and-wait sort of delay because my camera fired off two shots before she let go. She wanted to do it again so as to be assured of getting a decent shot, and again made two shots.

The real reason I took the camera was to attempt to capture “candid” conversations between my grandmother and her well-wishers. Unfortunately we spent a fair bit of time waiting in the sanctuary to get our picture taken, and I think, as a result, many of her friends had already left. Fortunately I was able to get this shot of her with the pastor.

We enjoyed lunch together afterward and enjoyed catching up a little bit. Fortunately we’ll be spending a fair bit of time together over the holiday as well. I’m so lucky to have two living grandparents (90 and 89) and I’m really glad their great-grand-kids have had a chance to spend some time with them.

For dinner Sunday evening, we had some friends (and our son’s godparents) over to our house. There was lots of animated conversation about all kinds of things, all the while Reggie and I were getting a bit restless and fidgety. So I got some little toys and someone (Anne or Emily) brought out the magnetic color cubes. Reggie went right to work.

Almost as fun was watching Emily taking pictures of some of the toys we’d been playing with, exploring the wonders of macro photography.

Here’s the first one she took of the toy on the corner of the table.

It was another great weekend-in-the-life, filled with the stuff we enjoy: music, photography, books (for Anne), family, games, friends, and food. I know its a few days early, but I’m thankful to be part of it all.