Original subtitles

All right, first dances.

We're getting towards the home stretch at the

end of the wedding day.

This is usually like the last coordinated thing

before we get to the dance floor.

And I'm always so relieved when we finish

this.

It's kind of like the grand entrance.

I feel like the first dance shots always

suck because we haven't quite got our lighting.

They don't suck.

They're deliverable.

They are what they are.

They're not our favorite.

They're not our favorite because it usually takes

us three or four songs as you will

learn when we get into the dance section

to get our lighting figured out and polished

to the way we like it.

But we hedge our bets and we try

to stack the cards in our deck as

best we can before those dances start.

So we make our way to the dance

floor, Erica and I, and we test out

some of our lighting techniques that we're gonna

explain for you guys and see which one

is gonna work best.

So I'm not gonna go into the lighting

here because when we go on to the

next module, which is the dance floor, we're

gonna explain our six lighting techniques.

And so we'll use one of those six

techniques when we're photographing the first dance as

well.

We just go out ourselves, test them out

and figure out, okay, let's try this one.

Let's make this one work.

Yes.

So again, one of us is shooting and

one of us is lighting.

So the first thing that we decide when

we're photographing the first dance is which direction

to shoot.

So usually it's a square dance floor and

there's four different directions that you can shoot

in.

But there's usually one direction or two directions

that are better, right?

Some directions, there'll be distracting white tablecloths in

the background.

I don't wanna shoot in that direction.

Some directions, there'll be the doors in the

background.

I wanna shoot in the direction that has

the least distracting background or the direction where

there's more stories to tell, more layers of

stories to tell, like maybe parents on the

sidelines watching it on or friends on the

sidelines or flower girls dancing in the background.

So it's always, we commit to whichever is

the most interesting background, whether it's chandeliers or

it's family members, right?

Like where's that gonna be?

And we shoot in that direction for the

whole dance versus like a dog chasing his

tail around, right?

Sometimes we'll switch mid-dance, but we won't,

yeah, we won't.

Our success rate is higher to just wait

until they spin into this direction again than

to keep chasing them around.

Yeah, I know.

It's so frustrating chasing them around because it's

the photographer chasing them around and then the

light are chasing them around.

And you keep missing it.

And we keep missing it.

Yeah, so things I'm keeping an eye out

for during the first dance, mostly is reactions.

Background reactions.

Background reactions.

The dance itself is important.

Obviously, I wanna document that.

But what's another layer, another story that I

could tell in the same frame that gives

that dance more context?

And often, if there's lots of people surrounding

the dance floor, family members and friends, I'm

looking towards that.

And as you will see, once we get

into our lighting techniques, I can easily change

my lighting technique mid-dance.

So if I'm lighting the dancers, I can

easily switch from lighting the dancers and the

background.

Or if I'm lighting the background, I can

easily switch from lighting the background to back

flashing.

So I can switch between these different techniques

really quickly.

You'll see that on the dance floor, we

like to use super wide lenses.

But for the first dance, we find that

the 35 or the 50 tends to be

the sweet spot there.

That way, we don't have to be so

in there close.

We can kind of back up a bit

more, still fill the frame and catch those

nice moments.

Yeah.

Right?

So let's go behind the scenes and look

at the first dances from the wedding.

All right, getting ready for the first dance

here.

You can see that I'm up on the

balcony up here.

Lani's down on the dance floor with the

light.

And we decided beforehand that we would shoot

the first minute or so of the dance

from this perspective.

And then I'd run down the stairs and

we'd shoot the rest closer.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome with a big

round of applause, Shannon and Ian to the

center of the dance floor.

Testing out the light, giving them a thumbs

up.

And obviously I can only shoot one direction

from up there.

So I have to wait until they turn

into the light that Lani is providing me.

And because they're quite small in the frame,

I'm gonna try and stay up here on

this balcony until I get a shot where

they fill a bit more of the frame

with the gestures of their body.

Just shooting the shit out of it.

As many shots as I can make before

I head down the stairs.

And here I come.

Lani and I predetermined that once I got

down the stairs, we would do a front

flash, back flash technique.

So you can see that my flash on

the camera is going off and Lani's flash

is going off.

What I didn't notice until I saw this

video actually is that this flash was going

off as well, which wasn't enticing.

I quickly realized that this technique wasn't working

very well.

There was way too many misses with the

way that they're dancing, which is a lot

of times sort of strung apart.

It's very hard for Lani to get that

flash in behind their bodies.

So you can see that I just gestured

to him there to switch to side light.

So he's side lighting for me now.

And now he realizes that this other flash

is going off.

Guys, the first dance is always such a

crap shoot.

We never get great first dance shots because

we're still figuring out the best lighting technique.

We got a few salvageable ones.

That's about all.

So many moments in this first dance.

I just, it's hard watching this video and

seeing how many moments we missed.

But we got a few.

I usually relax a lot more once we're

finished the first dance and we just get

into the dance party because we got hours

to get good dance shots, whereas we got

four minutes to get a good first dance

shot.

So that's the first dance.