Dance Photography, with Swann School of Dance
Just before the New Year, I had the pleasure of travelling to Swann School of Dance, in Parkeston Village, Essex, for a photoshoot with Emilia Swann, founder of Swann School of Dance and award-winning professional Latin and ballroom dancer.
On arrival, Emilia and I had a conversation about how the evening would be structured, to give me an idea of what to expect. I explained my candid shooting style to Emilia and we told the kids to ignore my presence, and carry on as if I wasn’t even there: “think of me as a shadow”! I wanted to make sure the photos came out as natural as possible but it is common tendency for some people to pose once they see the camera pointing at them. This actually provided a nice mix of cute posed photos, some ballroom style candid pics, and some of kids just being adorable kids in their own little world.
Emilia Swann - Swann School of Dance
Emilia has over 12 years of competitive dancing experience (at the time of writing this) and has now started her dream job of teaching at her very own dance school. Emilia has also won various awards, including: two first places in the gold category at the Blackpool ISTD Grand Final, Junior UK Closed Vice Champion, Welsh Champion, Suffolk Champion, Top 24 in the European Championships and Top 24 in the International Championships.
The Swann School of Dance offers one-to-one or group lessons for Latin and ballroom dancing, and private lessons for your perfect wedding dance. Emilia taught Damian and Tracie their wedding dance, who’s pictures feature on my wedding portfolio, from their beautiful dance at Hintlesham Hall. Our photoshoot focus was on the kids’ dances, but it was nice to get a couple of snaps of Emilia teaching.
Before the Dress Rehearsal
Before everyone got into their dresses, the dancers had a brief rehearsal in their black uniforms just to refresh their routine. This was a great opportunity to capture some photos of them in “learning mode”. You can see just from the one photo they are paying full attention to Emilia whilst going over their dance routine, which provided some lovely candid photos of the night. It also gave me a really good chance at trying a few different camera settings, with flash on and off, and to get to grips with various angles around the room.
The challenging part was the main lights in the hall are a horrible flickering tungsten, which was messing up shots and forced me into a slower burst with the cameras inbuilt “anti-flicker” mode. The other challenge is the hall itself is not a dance hall, it is just a generic hall for higher, so before we even started shooting I went around and put all the chairs in their correct places and had a good tidy up. The hall still didn’t look great though so to remove some of that background and really focus on the performers, I utilised the lenses widest aperture of f/1.8.
Cute Moments
Having a wide-aperture lens also allowed me to make use of the fairy lights that were hung up around the room for Christmas. Having those lights out of focus created a beautiful bokeh (a photography term for the aesthetic quality of the blur produced in out-of-focus parts of an image) which really compliments some of these photos, such as the adorable picture of one of the girls practicing her dance routine in the mirror, completely in her element.
“In the Moment” Candid Portrait Photos
Now I’m not usually a fan of posed photos at all. As someone who is very camera-shy myself, I hate having a camera shoved in my faced and being told to smile or pose forcibly. It feels really unnatural and makes for really uncomfortable images, in my opinion. This is why my style is to focus on natural moments, and I try to be as unobtrusive as possible.
The photo above of Immy Sands is one of my favourite pictures from this photoshoot, because it has the look of a planned portrait photo but it’s also very natural and relaxed. Immy was getting ready for her routine whilst Emilia was starting the music, and whilst that was happening Immy turned around, unexpectedly made eye-contact directly with my camera and gave me an adorable little smile as she saw me hiding in the corner. I’m really happy I managed to get a snap of this and to me it’s the best of both worlds; it’s an “in-the-moment” candid portrait.
Kids Couples Dance Ballroom Photos
Immy changed outfits to perform her Christmas dance routine with male dance partner, Ted. The chemistry between these two when they dance together is lovely to see, and I think this is captured beautifully in this picture of them. I took a lot more pictures of their dance before and after their dress rehearsal, including a lovely black and white image of their bow and courtesy at the finish, but I don’t want to reveal too many pics in one post so you’ll have to follow me on Instagram to see more in the future (I know, I’m sneaky). Plus I have more photos of the other dancers to show below!
Group Dance Ballroom Photos
Photographing the group dances was really good fun but also a challenge to keep up with the pace. When there are multiple subjects to photograph, it can be difficult to know which performer is going to do what next, so I had to be on my toes ready to quickly change my focus onto a new person. I really like this photograph of some of the girls performing their routine in matching red dresses.
The Grand Finale
This photo of Aria Cheyenne (Ari) is my favourite from this photoshoot at the Swann School of Dance. I really wanted to capture Ari in that position with the light shining from behind her, and I was so happy with the result. I converted the picture to black and white in Adobe Lightroom because I wanted the focus to be on the subject and contrast of light. The original had the red colours in the dress, the skin tones, the blue fairly lights, and tungsten ceiling light all in one frame, and for me those colours were distracting away from the subject (Ari) in her dance pose, looking at the ground with the light leading towards her.
Swann School of Dance
I really enjoyed this shoot with Emilia and Swann School of Dance, and I’m hoping they’ll have me back one day to take some more pictures.
All the above photos were taken by me. You can view more photographs from this event and other sports events on my sports page. If you like my work, I would appreciate if you could follow me on Instagram.
Please use the below button to get in touch for pricing and bookings, for feedback, or anything else: