Do you disco?

If there's one thing I've mastered over the years photographing weddings, it's how to get flipping awesome disco shots at weddings.

My shots capture the energy...

Wedding dance floor photography

My shots capture the fun...

Wedding dance floor photography
 

My shots capture the mayhem...

Wedding dance floor photography

I get right in there to get these shots, you have to

It means dancing myself. (Thankfully, I'm a good dancer, and love to dance.)

So if you're having a band or DJ and - more importantly - your crowd is a dancing crowd (not all are, which is fine), then make sure you have me for the evening because there is potential for some of the most awesome shots of the entire day - energy, emotion, colour.

These shots in this blog are from Darian and Mike's recent amazing wedding - we had a blast.

Pro tips

See after the photos (at the bottom) for my wedding dance floor photography pro tips.

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Pro tips

Here's my pro tips for how to get these types of shots:

• Make friends during the day - if you're gonna get up close and personal in the evening you need to do the groundwork and be a comfortable presence for those you're shooting on the dance floor 
• Give people space - don't impede others physically (as much as possible on a busy dance floor) and don't spend the whole night circling the dance floor - some people will not be keen on having their photo taken and you cannot ruin their evening
• Equipment:
  • Wide angle lens - 24mm works best I think, even 35mm is just too tight in my experience
  • Flash/speedlight - just on top of your camera (nothing remote needed) angled directly forward (or slightly up)
• Settings:
  • Flash:
    • On manual, somewhere between 1/128th and 1/4th - it shouldn't blind people at that (bearing in mind it'll be pointed directly at them, it should not be overly bright)
    • Manually dial in that you have a 50mm or 70mm focal length (i.e. telling your flash you have a less wide focal length than you actually do) - this kills the ambient light and really isolates any subjects in the centre of frame
  • Camera settings:
    • Normal flash mode - NOT rear sync as I frequently read many people do (why would you want to have to time the 'flash' part to be at the end? - Tricky)
    • Manual shooting mode
    • ISO - 400
    • Shutter speed - slow, enough for some light trails, so about 1/2 or 0.3 second, play around
    • Aperture - f7 to 11 on manual focus
    • Exposure - under expose a bit to reflect the room's darkness
• Technique:
  • Once your camera settings are ready, away from the dance floor focus to a point about a metre or two away (on anything at all, like a wall), then back on the dancefloor you won't need to focus, you just shoot people from about a metre or two away, and they should be in focus already. I use the back button focusing technique in order to do this - then you only need to focus once at the start (though I would always suggest checking your shots for focus and reseting every now and then in case something goes awry). Essentially you cannot afford the time/effort/space to focus whilst on the dance floor so the setup above negates the need to (whilst also getting awesome shots)
  • Keep on the move - don't take more than a couple of photos at any one time of anyone - let people have their fun without being disturbed by an annoying photographer, plus people don't particularly appreciate being blinded so try to gauge if it's too bright/effecting people 
  • Shoot downwards from head level if possible, to get better light trails - easy for me to say, I'm 6 foot 2
  • To get awesome light trails, ensure some kind of light source is in frame - e.g. disco lights - and after the flash goes off move the camera during the slow exposure, either to the side or a slight wiggle
  • Test and review - the best way to learn and check you're getting what you want is to review your shots