Dance Party

      About a week and a half ago, my friend Jake Pereria was generous enough to invite me to get my dance on at his younger brothers 16th birthday party on a cruise boat.  It just so happened to start at 8:00 P.M. (my hyper hour) therefore, it didn't take much to get me partying down on the dance floor.  I looked around me and soon realized I was surrounded by a bunch of sophmores.. which quickly diminished my natural 8:00 O'clock high.  No worries though, I was still having a blast... I just busted out my camera for awhile and snapped some shots of how much fun Levi and his friends had. 

     Ok, so this is probably one of the harder "action" things I shot.  It's not really a full out action activity, but everyone was still jumping around like a bunch of monkeys who accidentally snorted cocaine.  It took me awhile to figure out how I was going to shoot and once I thought I figured out the right shutter speed, flash, or ISO amount, it changed on me and I had too try something new.  Some of these pictures turned out a little better than others.  In my eyes, the photos I shot that night didn't turn out as well if there was no motion blur.  Motion blur was pretty necessary for the photos I wanted to create that night.  Therefore, for most the night, I left the shutter speed anywhere from 1 to 2.5 seconds open to create that motion blur and get some different, unique colors from all the lights bouncing around.  At first I had my ISO low, but quickly realized it was necessary to to have it at 800 or 1600 if I wanted to get a photo I could even see on the dark dance floor.  Like I said, the room was pretty dark so I kept my aperture as low as it could go, so around 4.6, 5.6.

     On the editing side of the pictures, on all of them I kept it pretty standard.  I kept the editing simple and didn't get to fancy in photoshop.  On most of them I just bumped the clarity up. And on some, I moved the contrast up.  I left the original colors the same on most of them, but for couple I made some of the yellow blur motion pop out a little more.. i believe I did that on photo # 1&5.  In these pictures I was trying to create an image that showed people having fun in a different way than just a standard, flash still picture with no life.  I wanted to add life and energy to these pictures and that is what I was trying to go for when shooting these. 

I like this photo because there was a bright light coming from the bathroom on the cruise boat which left a cool orange like burn down the middle of the picture.  The main focus, the girls dancing, aren't too blurry so that is nice also. 

This one of my friend Jake Tawves, is a great example of how you should party at a dance party.   The thing I like about this photo is that the kid at the bottom of the picture is pretty blurry and then his arms above his head are blown out, and pretty over exposed which I kind of like.  The reason I like that is because when I initially look at this photo, my eye gets drawn to the brightness of his arm which is right below Jake (the main focus of the picture).  Right after my eye sees the white, blown out arm, it moves up to Jake (the main focus), who is having a blast!

The same thing goes along with this photo,  my eye first goes to the bright orange motion blur and then it moves up where there is nothing else except blurry heads.  After that, I realize nothing is high up on the photo so my eye quickly moves down to a not perfectly focused Jake but focused (better than anything else in the picture) enough to be the main focus of the picture.  

I like this picture a lot, probably one of my favorite because the first thing my eye goes to is the main focus of the picture.  Danny is the main focus of the picture... he is in the middle of the dance floor and he is pretty much the only person lit up bright, with motion blur.  The people circled around him staring at him also adds to the picture showing the viewers that Danny is the main focus. 

This one is great and different from the rest because there isn't as much motion blur in this picture.  They are both very enthusiastic looking in this picture showing the true image of the energetic dance floor. 

This is Jake and Kate just having a lovely time.  I like this picture because almost everything around Jake and Kate is black except for the minimal motion blur centered around Jake and Kate.  With the surrounding black background it makes Jake and Kate pop out more, putting more of an emphasis on themselves.  

                                                    

I like how the orange motion blur almost creates a backwards half moon around the kids head and then his hand are in focus fairly well.  It circles the attention around the kid and his actions. And his facial expression is pretty priceless. 

I just wanted to desaturated these next photos because I didn't really like how the motion blur colors worked out.  Therefore, I figured I would see what they look like desaturated and in my eyes they turned out pretty cool looking.  If you look closely you can see where the motion blur was and by desaturating the pictures it creates a white foggy look around the picture making it a flawed which I like.  Depending how bright the motion blur was in certain pictures, with desaturating it, It would also blow out that area making way over exposed white which as cool film like affect or whatever you call that to the picture. 

This one I didn't exaggerate as much with the grain look.  I believe I kept the ISO at 400, it was dark out on the cruise so I didn't want to keep my ISO  to low or everything would of turned out black.  The desaturated look brings out the shiny silverware more than the rainbow colored M&Ms. 

I shot this at 1600 ISO, note  the grainy look.   I desaturated it all the way and turned the contrast all the way up.   I  brought the clarity down a little and made this image into an imperfect looking picture which I like.  Its different from the average picture that always looks perfect with the fancy silverware on the table

I got my inspiration from Sadii because she does a lot of motion blur and is very good at it. Check her stuff out, its the hottest stuff on the market. get it why its there

www.sadiiprospect.wordpress.com