Photographing the dance floor in wedding receptions

Written By Gr

Lets face it - photographing wedding receptions can be lot less exciting than ceremonies. Complete absence of daylight in most cases, long speeches,  starving bellies, too much fiddling around with smartphones and an obstruction course full of circular tables with white table cloth...all untill alcohol takes effect and dancing starts. While a room full of wild dancers amped up by thumping music can make up for lost excitement during the first half of the evening, it also means hundreds of RAW images filled with awkward dance poses. So here goes my top 10 list to make the best out of dance floor photography.

  1. Shoot like crazy and be prepared for all the extra time you are going to be spending in post production. Be brutal when it comes to editing out pictures. 
  2. Avoid direct flash at any cost. Its one thing that can decimate even the best dancer in the party
  3. Work with backlights. They are some of your best friends when it comes to capturing the contours of bodies in motion.
  4. Keep moving. You will be surprised how different the same dancer may look from a different vantage point.
  5. When you see too many 'behinds' in your viewfinder, it time to move on
  6. Watchout for those good dancers - there will always be a few. When they start dancing, those who are sober enough to realize that they are terrible will stop and start making space for the those who can move . You may even get  more breathing space to compose your frame
  7. Even bad dancers can deliver an awesome dance photograph. Its all about the timing and lighting
  8. Work with black and white. Its lot more forgiving
  9. Experiment with remotely triggered strobes and pocket wizards. They can be a lot of fun
  10. Make sure to get something healthly to eat before the reception. And dont forget to have fun even if you have to empty a glass or two!!

 

Here is a selection of dance photographs from Priyanka & Sai's wedding in Boston this summer.

 

Gr
Ganesh Ramachandran is an urban designer and a photographer who has led design efforts for a wide range of award winning projects in campus planning, citywide comprehensive plans, downtown revitalization, multi-family housing, transit oriented development and healthcare facilities planning. His work spans a spectrum of services, from conceptual planning, programmatic site capacity studies, project management and public outreach. Since 1998, Ganesh has been collaborating on high profile planning and design efforts in India, United States, China, and Pakistan by developing context-sensitive design ideas and by cross fertilizing planning strategies gleaned by working with the local communities, city governments, private developers and fellow professionals in more than 30 cities across the world including Baltimore, Bangalore, Boston, Cambridge MA, Calcutta, Chennai, Karachi, New Orleans, Palo Alto, San Antonio, San Francisco, San Jose, San Diego, Shanghai and Washington DC. A member of 40-under-40 Next American Vanguard class in 2012, Ganesh has been a guest speaker and studio critic at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston Architectural College and University of California, Berkeley. He is also a professional architectural photographer and a documentarian of urban conditions. His work can be seen at www.gramachandran.com and at www.urbanslate.com Ganesh received a masters degree in urban design from the University of California, Berkeley, masters degree in architecture from the Ohio State University, Columbus OH and a baccalaureate degree in architecture from the National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirapalli, India
www.gramachandran.com
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