I spent part of last saturday shooting the Midsummer’s Festival in Lindsborg, Kansas — also known as Little Sweden, USA. I love Lindsborg’s festivals but I hadn’t shot this one since back in my film days so I was long overdue for a return.

The dances on Main Street have always been great for photos and I decided to shake it up a bit and use some flash to try and overpower the sun a bit. I didn’t want an unnatural look but was hoping to underexpose the bright skies in the backgrounds to pop the foreground dancers out with the flash. I had totally forgotten about this particular dance (above) where the men swing the women completely off their feet as they spin round and round. It doesn’t last long and I was happy to find myself in a fairly decent position when it happened.

It actually happens twice in this particular dance and for the second time, I decided to try and shoot from a very low angle — basically shooting blind with a wide angle held right down on the brick street. My aim was not perfect, however, and I cropped the heads off of the dancers in nearly every frame. That’s one of the main rules of photography, right? Don’t crop heads off. Well, the more I looked at these shots, the more I thought there was still something there. I cropped a bit more, dodged and burned to redirect the eye, and ended up with this:

Would I have shot it this way purposefully? Probably not. But I now consider it a happy accident. When viewed large, there are some great expressions on the dancers faces in the background on the right side. They actually become the subject and the foreground dancers become more of a frame. I’m liking this shot more each time I look at it.

Here are a couple more from the raising of the Maypole. Many thanks to Jim Richardson who was kind enough to wander over before the proceedings and give me a little preview of what would happen. Jim’s a great and generous photographer. If you ever find yourself in Lindsborg, be sure to look up his Small World Gallery on Main.

And one last telephoto shot, intentionally blurred for a little movement:

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