Evaluating The Breakdancing Shoot

A couple of days ago, I blogged about jotting down some crib notes on my hand before heading out to a breakdancing shoot. Did the crib notes help? I think so. The photos didn't turn out as well as I had hoped, but being able to glance down at the notes on my hand from time to time definitely improved my shots. Here's my analysis:

Hand:	Comments:
Bird's eye	Bird's eye was tough, because I didn't have a ladder and there wasn't a balcony for me to shoot from. However, I was able to shoot down from the stage onto the spinning dancers. Because their bodies were close to the ground, it exaggerated the bird's eye effect. An added benefit was that shooting bird's eye helped to remove a lot of the background clutter.
Worm's eye	This was easier: I just laid on my side and shot close to the floor. One thing I had to be mindful of was giving the guys enough space to practice their moves. It was a small gym, but there were always 3-4 guys practicing at the same time. Similar to bird's eye, getting down to a worm's perspective helped unclutter the background.
360	This was also easy, because the room was small. I just reminded myself to keep looking over my shoulder to see what was happening behind me. This guy was very quick, so I was lucky that I turned around in time to catch a few frames of him.
Silhouettes	I ended up not taking silhouettes of the guys because the lighting was fairly even throughout the gym, so when I underexposed someone, the entire background would go dark as well. Thinking back, the far side of the gym was dark, so I could have shot out from that side and maybe created some silhouette images. I'll try it next time.
Off-camera flash (very high spotlight)	I tried using my flash as a spotlight, but I didn't execute it well. I had a difficult time aiming it at the dancers. Furthermore, I think the direct flash distracted them, so I gave up after a few frames. If I go back there a couple more times and strike up a rapport with them, I may haul out a lightstand, mount a bare flash (zoomed to around 105mm), and ask them to try to stay within the spread of the flash.
Get emotions of dancers and crowd	There were no crowds this time around, only a small group of seasoned veterans, so I didn't see a lot of "ooooo's and ahhhhh's". Also, I found it difficult to get sharp shots of people's faces. The closest I got was this shot of three guys studying the routine of a fourth dancer.
Quiet moments	When taking primarily action shots, it's always nice to capture some quiet moments to help add variety to your collection.
Watch ISO, watch shutter - camera shake!	Monitoring both settings was fairly simple. I just kept the ISO at 800 and the shutter speed around 1/100 sec. At times I slowed the shutter speed down to capture more blur. I would have liked to increase the shutter speed to better freeze the action, but it was so dark in there that I had to keep it around 1/100 sec the entire time. I don't see evidence of camera shake on my small laptop at home, but when I get into work, I'll examine the photos more closely.
Focus off-center	I wrote this down because I wanted to add some tension in my photos. When your subject is dead center it tends to create a static and boring image. But I broke this rule almost immediately! When I tried to focus off-center, the guys would literally fly out of the frame! My widest lens had an effective focal length of 52.5mm (not very wide), so I had to keep the central line of my subjects close to the middle in order to reduce cutting off their legs and arms. I also had to back up a bit. I was going to cheat and create off-center compositions by cropping it during post-processing, but I found that the shapes the dancers created with their bodies were so kinetic and compelling that it didn't matter if they were in the middle of the image.
Get in-your-face shots	I'm glad I wrote this down, because had I not, I would have forgotten to do this. I'm usually good about getting close to my subjects, but for this shoot, I tried to keep some distance between me and the dancers. I did this mainly for two reasons: 1. I had to move back, so that my lens could capture their entire body. 2. I wanted to get out of their way, so that they could practice without fear of kicking me. I'm happy that I was able to squeeze off a few frames up close without getting kicked in the head!

I'm not saying that everyone should write notes on their hand, but I think that every photographer has areas where they can improve, bad habits that they need to watch out for, or simple things that can add variety to their photos. If you don't want to mark up your hands, find other quick and easy ways to keep you on your toes! Lastly, and this is slightly off-topic, but besides having crib notes, what also helped was bouncing ideas off of another photographer. Basile made some observations that helped make the the experience better for everyone. More on that later!