Occasionally, we do stories on events, where the people aren't necessarily the stars. While the dance, the vehicle, the building or the scene may be the reason we're there, we nearly always try to use people as a focal point.
Last week, we shot a roller skating fund-raiser. Shooting in a dark rink with disco lights bouncing off the walls made it a a challenge to get an interesting shot without a pasty flash-bash feel. We set up two flashes to get off-camera shadows, used a slow exposure (1/2 second?) to show the colored lights in a blurred background pattern and panned to catch skaters in motion with the flashes.
It nearly worked until the second flash was knocked off the rail and was broken. So we improvised and went with a single flash and continued to use the slow shutter speeds to blur the lights. It worked out.
About a dozen years ago, we traveled to Washington D.C. 's Dupont Circle to do a story on the gay entertainment scene, where we shot the photo above. The scene itself was the story and the subject of the photos. The dance club was drowning in reds, and blues and yellows, but not any real strong white light. So, to show motion we used the slow shutter speeds, but still stopped enough of the dancing, skating, partying with the flash to show what was happening.
Give it a try. It will probably take some experimenting to adjust the f-stops, ISO, and speed to get the right exposure but the picture will be a intersting mix of color and speed.
It's terrific to show all these colors, and but don't forget the reason you're there to start with. Stop the action with the flash.
