Maya Christensen is one of life’s moment savers. As a photographer, Maya gets to capture little pieces of people’s lives forever: special moments, looks, displays and performances. Things that would have slipped through the cracks are preserved forever. Maya specializes in wedding, portrait and dance photograph in Utah. Working on alone, Maya can personalize any of your photos from enlargements to creating an album just for you. Mayas unique style combines portrait photography with the photojournalistic skill of capturing candid moments.

If this sounds like something you would be interested in doing yourself, we have put together a few hints and tips to help get you started, particularly in dance photography.

1) It’s always a good idea to shoot from a low angle, which in itself produces an exciting image, making the subject stand out. If you happen to be shooting the dance floor at a wedding or event, the venue will likely have elaborate decoration, so try to get some of the background incorporated into the image. Don’t use a zoom lens, as other dancers will only get in your way. If you need to get in amongst other dancers to get the shot you want, do it!
2) To get a really dynamic and varies set of shots, move around the dance floor or stage, don’t stick to one side. If you’re trying to shoot one or two dancers in particular, try not to separate them from the other dancers- the more motion the better! Try shooting from angles you wouldn’t use in everyday life. If you are one of the lucky photographers who has a camera with a rotating screen, you may even be able (in some circumstances, as I said low shots are generally preferable) to shoot the dancers from a high angle. Even if your camera doesn’t have a rotating screen, give some different angles a shot, you might be surprised at what you come up with.
3) An off board flash is always a better idea. Never use the onboard flash as its light is very flat and there’s not that much you can do to make it better. A remote flash is a neat gadget to try using, but you’ll need an assistant to move around with you when you use it. With the flash further from the lens, you won’t get as much of a red eye effect in your photos! Red eye reduction on cameras rarely works, so take all the help you can get. If all of that hasn’t already sold you on the idea, bear in mind that you’ll get much larger distances shot if you use a remote flash.
4) This may seem like an extremely backwards piece of advice to give, considering how much motion is going on in front of your lens, but hear me out: try using a slower shutter speed in some of your dance shots. You get the background in sharp focus, with the interesting effect of the dancers being blurred slightly depending on how long your exposure is and how wide your aperture is set.
5) The piece of advice I would like to leave you with lastly is one of the most important; I recommend ALWAYS using a tripod! Panning across a stage or dance floor is way less effort, and produces a way better result if the camera is steady at all times. If you are using a low shutter speed you’ll need as little shaking as possible to get a great shot!

Try those tips out and maybe one day soon it’ll be you who is advertising their photographic services! Best of luck.