On Feb 9, 2011, at 11:37 AM, Igor Roshchin wrote: > > Larry, > > I think you did a very reasonable job from the technical point of view, > although I am not a specialist on studio shots.
Thanks. > I don't see any sharp shadows on the floor or background, which is nice. And that was something I was working on preventing. > Some photos have shadows that might be a bit deeper than one might > desire, - but these shadows are from the face or mutual dancer position. > (52300, 52313) I kept telling the subjects to position themselves along a diagonal that would prevent that, but when they danced, they moved around and forgot. > >> From the "artistic" or rather dance point of view, - I'd argue that > in several photos it is a problem of the dancers and the fact that > you caught them in a pose that they cannot do well. Good point. It is exacerbated by my not knowing tango well enough to perhaps guage them doing it well. Likewise, they may be beginning dancers who don't do anything very well. If I were to have my act together, I'd have a few simple tips printed up to help people get better pictures. > In general, the better the dancers, the more great shot opportunities > you get. However, there are exceptions. There is both skill at dancing, and skill at performing. Studio ballroom concentrates a lot on dancing for an audience and "looking good" while usually tango, and blues and lindy, concentrate on "feeling good to your partner". My subjects covered a wide range in skill, from slightly better at tango than me, to regular performers. > Another point regarding the poses (lines): some of the poses in your > series look frozen, and hence somewhat unnatural (as in posed). > That's a big point that I mention in my workshop: in many cases > the poses should not be frozen, they should be dynamic, even > if the dynamics is very slow That is a good point, yet a challenging detail when the space is so small, and I need to take a couple frames to nail a shot. > (it is especially important in tango, > where transitions look better when smooth, in contrast to > some exceptions, say, in Lindy, but even there they need to be smooth). > Actually, it was Kathy Warwick (you know her), One of my favorite teachers and dance partners. > I like that LRC52292.jpg has a space for the follow to go, > and the lead looks at you, but if we can see a bit more of the lead, > (if you stepped just a step to the right), it would've looked more > interesting. If I had stepped a bit more to the right I very likely would have had half the frame blocked by the wall and doorframe. There's a good chance I was photographing this one from outside the room. I actually like the way half of Lyle's face is eclipsed behind Carol Ann. > Interesting series, - thanks for sharing. > Sorry for being wordy, - I hope you don't mind my comments. On the contrary, I appreciate them, because you have experience and expertise in this very subject. I may not agree with all of your conclusions, but I can certainly learn from your process and reasoning to get to them. > > Igor > > PS. If you are interested, - I like the way this photographer > (Lev Tsimring) > did studio series of tango dancers: > http://www.tangoalma.com/gallery7_pages/gal_1.html > (use the arrows to see all 19 photos) > and here: > http://www.levtsimring.com/v/people/tango/ > > Maybe you can see some interesting ideas there... Yes, he has some very nice work. I much prefer the depth and texture of his lighting to mine. I haven't yet figured out how to get that control in such a small space, with such reflective walls. Perhaps the honeycomb filter on my strobe. It also seems that I need to try boosting the light a bit so that I can stop down a bit more for more depth of field and a bit more forgiveness in my focus. > -- Larry Colen [email protected] sent from i4est -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
