First and foremost, I’d like to thank fellow photographer and swing dancer Georgie Rastall of Cheeky Rastall Photography who put me forward to cover her for the Friday night social at Swing Revolution Leeds. Having recently moved to Leeds last autumn, it was an excellent opportunity for me to showcase my work to a swing scene that I am still settling into, and I am very grateful that she put her confidence in me.

I have previously been cautious about photographing swing dance socials for a number of reasons. While I was learning to dance at the University of York I was also really working on developing my photography skills, so they formed two separate but interlinked areas of my personal development. I was often worried that taking photos of swing dance as a job would spoil the experience for me, but nowadays I feel more confident in separating work from leisure and can derive equal pleasure from both dancing and taking photos of dancing.

The Refectory in Leeds University Union is an excellent venue to dance in, but was a challenge to photograph. I prefer not to shoot with flash, mostly because my flash setup isn’t advanced enough and I’m not technically experienced enough to get the results I’d like, and it can be very intrusive to dancers. Additionally, I wanted to respect the lighting design and figured that I just had to work with it, using all the patches of light and shadow just as I would at a live music gig. For this kind of situation I normally set the camera in manual with auto ISO, so that I can keep a hand on the shutter speed and aperture while letting the gain adjust itself.

It’s such a cliché to say that photography is all about the moment, but this is especially true for photographing social dances - over the course of one 3-minute dance there can be a hundred different moments of connection, expression and excitement. Capturing the right one that combines the chemistry of the dancing pair with a cool move or pose, with great lighting and the right settings is always difficult, but it’s so rewarding to create moments that the dancers themselves wouldn’t have known about. There are of course others that the dancers definitely do know about, such as my absolute favourite photo from the night:

Jam circles and showcases are always goldmines for photographers; the angles and positioning are ideal, everyone who performs throws out their best moves, and you get the crowd in the background hyping everyone up. While they are an absolute thrill to photograph (and to dance in - when you nail a dance in the middle of a jam circle, the high really is like nothing else), I wanted to ensure that I captured as many people as I could having a great time. This does mean I overshoot somewhat, and that does make more work for myself in the edit, but as I’m sure many will agree, a less-than-perfect photo of someone participating is better than no photo at all, so I hope I’ve hit that criteria.

What I found most rewarding was seeing how much the scene had bounced back post-Covid; remembering that it took a very long while for many swing scenes to recover from the pandemic helped to emphasise the joy at the fact that we can do it all again. I hope I’ll be back in the future for more dancing and photography not just in Leeds but wherever I can. For a full collection of photos, please check out the Swing Revolution Dance camp social media pages, but in the meantime enjoy a selection of some of my favourites.