Studio or competition?

I am just coming down from shooting a college graduation portrait and a ballroom dance competition known as Go Wild Minneapolis.

The graduation photos went well until a small gust of wind turned my lighting umbrella into a sail, which caused the light stand to topple to the ground. Fortunately, it landed on the umbrella, which was destroyed, but that saved my expensive Profoto strobe. Still, it meant that I’d be shooting for free. (The cost of a new Profoto umbrella is about the same as the amount I was charging for the portrait.)

Two days later, I was working as the official photographer at Go Wild. It was a 10-hour marathon of dancing and problem solving that led to eight very long days of editing. The setting was less than ideal. The only lighting in the hotel ballroom came from overhead chandeliers burning in the incandescent (yellow) range. Fortunately, I brought my Profoto B10s and a B10+. They are battery-powered lights, though I ran plugs to them to help accelerate the recharge rate. I set them on opposite corners of the dance floor and bounced the bare heads off the ceiling in an effort to flood the floor and cast the dancers’ shadows downward.

Setting the light power proved difficult. Depending on where the dancers were on the floor, they could be perfectly exposed, overexposed or grossly underexposed. Most competitions have powerful lights on stanchions illuminating the floor, so the photographers’ strobes would just add a touch of fill light and eliminate any motion blur. But this one-day competition is smaller so I suspect it wasn’t worth the cost of renting those floor lights. No matter, professional photographers adjust as necessary. I experimented with TTL (through the lens) metering on my strobes, a kind of automatic setting, but ultimately settled on manual control of the lights.

I offered two services at the competition. Hire me to shoot your round (three to five dances of a given style) and I will focus only on you. This yields more and better photos. But the cost is too much for some dancers. So I also agreed to shoot “freelance” whenever I wasn’t working for a client. That was most of the time. The dancers can then go through the shots and pick just the ones they want. The cost per photo is much greater than what you’d pay by hiring me for exclusive coverage, but many people only want a few shots, so this option works for them.

I shot more than 4,700 photos. Because of the nature of the lighting, it took an extraordinary amount of time to go through and edit the photos. They had to be cropped, color balanced, and in many cases, the exposures had to be corrected. That’s because the Profoto lights, as good as they are, could not keep up with my shooting pace. One shot would be properly exposed and the next one would be slightly underexposed because the light hadn’t been fully recharged between shots. (The power recycling rate on the B10 flashes ranges from 0.05-2.5 seconds.) I shoot in “raw” mode, which retains all of the possible data that was captured, so I knew I could make adjustments in post processing. Ultimately, I came away with just over 2,400 usable images.

I took the advice of a former colleague and uploaded the ad-hoc images to a website called ShootProof.com. It allows me to set up galleries for clients to browse and order print or digital images at their leisure. It protects the images by adding a “watermark” with my studio name, which is removed upon payment. It collects client contact information and adds the sales tax and takes care of the payment. Apparently, it will also distribute invoices, contracts and model releases, though I have not yet used those components. So far, I am pleased by this website. I look forward to hearing from clients about their experiences with it.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my photography in the wake of these assignments. I love portraits, where I create the effects I want through light and shadow, and through personal interactions with the subject(s). I also love shooting events and photojournalistic assignments, which require anticipation, quick decisions and a bit of luck. This is the yin and yang of photography.

I’ve been a bit heavy on the yang lately and feel the need to add more portraiture work. If you’re considering a new headshot, have a family reunion coming up, or just want to explore some dramatic expression in a studio or location setting, reach out. I still have some openings in July and August.