Derek Drury

I started photography many years' ago and studied City & Guilds at Manchester Tech under George Wakefield. Older photographers will remember that he wrote weekly artcles in the 'Amateur Photographer.' Of more recent times I submitted 20 Black and White ballroom dancing images images to the British Professional Photogrpahers Associates and was very happy to learn that I had been awarded my LBPPA. You will find 3 of these pictures at the end of this article.

Ballroom Dancing - perhaps not everyone's cup of tea but, thanks to 'Strictly Come Dancing', over recent years it has become a very popular programme on TV.

The problems of photographing dance competitions are challenging and pose similar problems to other activities where movement, colour, distance from subjects, variable lighting all conspire against the photographer.

The Challenge: The main problem is lighting. Most dance halls are not that well lit, and even the Winter Gardens at Blackpool where the World Championships are held has its problems. Here it is not so much the level of light, but the colour of it and the spot lights that are swirling around the dancers. You have certainly got to know your camera and if possible go to the ballroom beforehand to take test shots. Of course in this way you can learn from your results as to what adjustments need to be made.

Equipment: I currently use a Canon 40D Digital Camera and a a 90mm f/1.8 lens. Whilst the slowest speed I find I can get away with is 1/120th of a second I prefer 1/250th and so use 1000 ISO and f/1.8 as I do not use flash.

White Balance: I set this to Tungsten Light which in the main helps to avoid red faces.

Noise: After years of trial and error I now use Neat Image for noise reduction. Whilst for small prints the Canon 40D does not need it. However, for larger pictures it is a very useful tool to have when using highish ISOs.

Colour Correction: I use PictoColor's iCorrect Portrait. Not only is this useful for dancing images, but I find it very useful for my general photography.

Sharpening: Nik Sharpener is my usual tool, but for slightly out of focus shots you can turn the following into an Action in Photoshop - Bring up an image for sharpening. Copy it to an independent layer (Ctrl+J). Choose Filter/Other//High Pass. Set the Radius to 4 pixels/OK. Bring up Levels (Ctrl+L)and change the first and third input levels to 75 and 180 brightness levels/OK. Now go to the Layers palette and choose Overlay. Finally adjust the top layer's Opacity usually to between 60/80 to suit. Finally flatten the image.

My dance photos: Go to www.dancesport.uk.com and look in the Photo gallery to see some of my pictures.