How have you guys been holding up? It’s definitely been tough for us not being able to work with dancers during this time. It feels like it’s March 231st… But we are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel finally.
We’re hoping to be back at ‘er soon!
During this time of boredom, we did lots of future planning and brainstorming… As well as lots of social media “creeping”, am I right? Aren’t we all with all this extra time on our hands? We also came across other photographers doing virtual photoshoots. At first, we weren’t big fans of it. The image couldn't compare to what we’re used to with our big fancy dancy camera. But… Then we came across a photographer on Instagram who changed it up a little. After taking the photo through FaceTime (not screenshot), they used their professional camera to take a photo of the image on the face of their phone propped against a background. We thought this was pretty cool!
So, we hopped on board and gave it a shot.
One of the cool things about this is that we can work with any dancer anywhere, as long as they have a recent enough iPhone (better quality) so we can capture images over FaceTime. So far we worked with a few dancers here in town, as well as a dancer in Colorado. Another perk? We get to sit on our bums for the actual photoshoot part haha! A big role in the success of this (and deserving of credit), is the dancer’s mom. While we still set up the poses and take the actual photos like usual, moms have been our tripod. Trying to get dancers to prop their phone against something for photos is constricting and not ideal, so it’s been very helpful having someone work the phone. After we have chosen a location in the house and (oftentimes) a lot of furniture gets pushed around (no charge for the redecorating), Mike directs our “mompod” on where to stand/crouch and how to angle the phone for the best shot...
Meanwhile we’re still sitting over here on our bums!
Once the shoot is finished, we move on to the selecting and editing stage like usual… While they get their house back in order haha! An extra fun part about these photoshoots is how it lets us get creative with different backgrounds for the phone and sometimes use backgrounds that are associated with the story in the photo. It’s definitely fun, but is also quite the process: We select the best images, then transfer them to a computer, edit them, transfer them back to the phone, take a photo of the phone on a backdrop with our professional camera, transfer the photos (yet again) to the computer, and then, final touch-up editing...
TA DA!
Seven steps later… But, it’s totally worth it for the better quality of the camera and extra creativity.
We’ve had fun experimenting with these shoots. While we got to “work with” a sister duo here in town, we also got to connect with someone in the United States, as well as give a virtual shoot to a dancer stuck at home on her 11th birthday. We knew because of Covid-19, a big birthday bash wasn’t possible for her, so we wanted to give her something fun to look forward to… A fun and safe dance photoshoot at home!
And she may or may not have been pied in the face lol!
Take a look at the photos below that we’ve done so far! Leave a comment on our Facebook or Instagram blog post about which one is your favourite! We want to know!
If you’re looking to set up a virtual shoot, click HERE to contact us! And also an FYI, we will still be offering these virtual shoots after Covid-19 wraps up, because they are a completely different experience.
Side-note: Are you not from Sudbury, Ontario? Do you live really, really, really far away from us? Contact us, and the person who lives farthest gets a free virtual dance photoshoot!
-Mike and Brittany
