Every year, we go away to Hanmer Springs for an annual Swing Dance social event. Part of this weekend away always entails a dress up theme for the main Saturday night dance, and this year the theme was ‘dress as your teenage self’.

Now this is a theme which is guaranteed not to disappoint! We decided to take along the camera, and not miss out on the opportunity for some great photos.

Swing Dancing is a partner dance that was the predominant dance craze through the 1920s, 30s and 40s. Sharon and I are both avid swing dancers, and we teach at the local public swing classes as well as taking our own private classes and swing dance performances. (On a side note, we will be teaching and performing at the upcoming Jambalaya festival in March 2011, so if you are in Auckland around that time you should come along!)

The local swing dance club here in Christchurch is called The Swingtown Rebels. The picture on the right here is a picture I took of Sarah and Becky, who run the club. Sharon gave this image the royal rebel treatment, and I think that the end result is awesome.

If you look carefully, you will find a picture of me in the photos below… but I am not telling you which one is me – you will have to guess.

Setup Details

The setup for the photography was a simple setup – inspired by Zack Arias and his one light concept, I decided to stick to just one light and not over complicate things.

I located a back corner of the hall which was out of the way and had a blank grey wall as a nice neutral backdrop.  A Nikon SB26 at 1/2 power was set up with a 43″ white shoot through umbrella, and placed to camera right just above head height. The light was about 12 feet from the background wall, and people were generally asked to stand about 6 feet from the light – however this was changed up a bit to achieve certain pictures, so the camera settings were adjusted accordingly. The light was triggered using a set of Pocket Wizard Plus II’s.

The images were shot using a Canon 5D mkII and an EF28-70mm f2.8 L Lens. The camera settings varied slightly, but were all shot at 1/125th, with an ISO between 320 and 640, and aperture between f5.6 and f7.1. The images below have only had minor photoshop done to remove dust and marks off the wall, and some tweaks to contrast/colour and sharpness.