Photographing the first dance is a lot of fun. It’s the last main event that the photographer needs to capture so it’s usually home-time afterwards, which means you always want to finish the day with a bang! Getting a good shot of the first dance depends on how calm or exciting the first dance is and that usually affects my approach to the shoot.
I’ve more recently been introducing off camera flash to some dances, which adds in more lighting and atmosphere to the shots. This really helps the exposure as it’s usually very dark at this time and adds extra lighting into the scene. This shot is lit with three separate flashes, the two behind and one on front. The lights also have coloured gels which help add more variety to the shot. Without this lighting there is only the fairy lights you can see in the roof (half of which aren’t on!) so flash really helped here.
This is particularly useful as not many people invest in entertainment based on the lighting, it’s usually about what sound the band has or what playlist the DJ will play. A lot of bands do have some great lighting, and Dj’s have been really upping their game in recent years to gt great lighting on the dancefloor.
It’s always nice when people do slow and romantic dances, but some like to get really crazy with their dances! The most memorable was Rob & Marian’s first dance which featured about 30 different snippets of songs and choreographed dances to go with them!