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Wade Heninger | Dance Photography

The Quick Survey

• Business Name: Heninger Fotographik
• Located in: Seattle, WA
• Started: I started working in the late 90s.
• Status: Part Time.  I also work for SmugMug as their resident designer.
• Types of Photography: I shoot mainly dance, family and portraiture, with a few weddings mixed in to keep it interesting.
• Primary Camera / Favorite Lens: I <3 my Canon 5D MKII.  My favorite lenses are:  Canon 24-105L and my Canon 70-200 L 2.8 IS.   However, my absolute favorite lens is my Summicron 50 on my Leica M8.  Bar none that lens impresses me every time I use it.  Wish I could mount it on the 5D
• Interesting Personal Fact:I love to shoot dance performances in my kilt. Its dressy, and it has some big pockets (Utilikilt) for holding all that crap we need to carry around.  If I ever pass out shooting, I full expect someone to scream "We have a photog down, repeat a photog is down" in a nice scottish accent.

Main Site / Blog: http://heninger.org/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/heninger

Short Bio - I started in photography as a kid when my grandparents gave me an Argus 126 camera for christmas one year.  I burned thru a lot of film before the economics of it all outstripped my modest 8 year-old finances.  Much later on I picked up a camera when digital was just starting to catch on and before long I was back learning traditional photography and working in my own darkroom.  I worked as a designer at Adobe and gravitated towards the photo side of their offerings, working on Photoshop, Camera Raw and finally Lightroom - a product which I'm very proud of and use to this day.

I spent the better part of 5 years doing mainly fine art street photography - prowling the streets with my Leica and learning how to edit my work.  I kinda stumbled into dance photography when I suggested a small project with a local studio where my daughter was dancing.  One thing lead to another and now I find myself shooting several big dance events a year in the Seattle area and am the studio photographer for Emerald Ballet Theatre in Bellevue, Wa.  Dancers moving fast in dark environments have really pushed me technically, and I've been really happy with the improvements in hardware over the past 5 years.

My style has morphed over the past decade, and what was once a body of very traditional, very rigid black & white work has morphed into a much more varied presentation using colors, toning and more than a few vignettes.  Lightroom has had a huge impact on that broadening focus beyond my comfort zone.   I shoot a lot more these days, and as my volume has increased, I've actually handed off the proofing, sales and printing to SmugMug and its pro lab which has saved me a huge amount of time.

I don't do much active marketing per se, but I pick up a manageable volume of family, senior and portraiture work thru the dance studios clientele - its a nice symbiosis.

Each year brings a new bunch of stuff to learn, and I enjoy the challenges photography brings.  Furthermore, I find a lot of inspiration with both the contemporary and historical work out there.  I'm a huge fan of using the social media outlets, especially twitter and facebook to publicize my work and I'm amazed at the connections I've made thru that venue.  I try to limit my follows, but those I do constantly impress.

My job designing photographer tools for the last decade has allowed me to travel, attend conferences (you'll always find me at WPPI & PPE) and meet with some great artists and interesting people.

Finally, I do a weekly roundup of the important happenings in the Lightroom world, entitled "Lightroom Tuesday" that is chalk full of tutorials, tips and tricks for making the most of today's outstanding workflow software.  Follow me on Twitter for the weekly reminders.

Its a great time to be a photographer.