I like disco dance

"Towson University students dance and sing during a dance rehearsal of "Front and Center," the last of the 13 pieces being presented in "conVERGEnce" in the Center for Arts Wednesday night. All of the pieces in the concert were choreographed by 19 senior dance students for the major's capstone class."

Wednesday night I shot a dance rehearsal of senior dance majors at Towson University. It was nothing near what Borat calls, " I like-ah disco dance" (Don't you love user generated content on YouTube! that is far from the original, ha).

Having recently recovered from the flu, it was to be back on my feet. Last Saturday night after shooting back-to-back sporting events, I grabbed a quick dinner at Bateman's and the went home to relax and watch a movie.

Having never seen it, I randomly began watching "Poltergeist." I made it all the way to what was probably the last 15 minutes of the film when my stomach swiftly started turning and twisting. Something was not right.

Next thing I knew, dinner was no longer in my where I had placed it two hours before. Feeling significantly better after being sick, I thought it was only food poisoning. Too bad that notion only lasted maybe an hour before I relapsed and was on the bathroom floor all night into the morning.

From that point on, I never left my bathroom or bed for the next two days. I am still not feeling perfect, but hey, at least I am up and active again.

Anyways, since I was out of the office and class Monday, the other photogs kindly picked up my slack, so I didn't have anything to shoot other than the dancers on Wednesday.

Assignments such as these are always what I call a easy shoot, tough edit. They are very visual and are catered to the audience. Thus meaning, the performers are dressed nicely, the stage is free of clutter and the lighting is impeccable.

You typically have to scout out vantage points in advance and make sure when you move, it's, quietly, when you're allowed and not to get in the way of the routines.

Also, when you do shoot, it has to the frame you want, no motor driving away. I don't think the performers, nor the staff would like a noisy photographer walking in everyones way.

Thus was the case last night. Although a full dress rehearsal, they were video taping. So I could only move between dance segments.

When I walked in, I saw the stacked lights and knew I wanted one photo to be from the back stage area. I liked image, but not for my lead. From backstage, I moved to the catwalks and made a couple frames, but wanted to stay away from the aerial, above image.

So then I finally made to the floor for the last performance. Sitting on the stage right in front of the performers, I saw the ceiling lights and started working with them. I kept waiting for the perfect layered frame, when one of the dancers dropped a huge prop purse right in front of me and my camera on the floor. I was forced to move slightly to my left and make the above frame.

It's not exactly what I wanted, but it works. Back to why I call this assignment a easy shoot, tough edit.

Normally on an assignment, I'll know in advance at least three solid images I'll want want to edit, caption and move once downloaded.

However, stage performance assignments with limited room to work, you have a lot of frames that appear nearly identical. Thus meaning you have go back through your images multiple times, even if you've already made note of which ones you like (this is called tagging in the photo world. It's done in camera and you can bring up only those images when editing).

Not sure what I have coming up the next couple of days, but I am jam-packed with school work. It's going to be a long weekend once I find out what I need to shoot on top of writing a five page paper, a 650-word article, study for a mid-term and do some Web site design work all before Monday.