For those who don’t know me, hi! I’m Michael Mathieu, and I’ve been dancing West Coast Swing for 14 years and doing photography since early 2026. My IG is @WaxingPhotonic. I’ll write a proper introduction another time, but for now, here’s my dance photo story.
In Part 1, I covered the first three months of my photography, from Asia WCS Open through SwingLab Berlin. Here, I cover the next three months.
Entering August, I had started to establish what I wanted my photography to be, and I had learned a lot about what did not work. I also started to attend portrait sessions in Berlin, learning more about what makes a good portrait from my peer photographers. My photography transformed itself over these three months into the style that I present today. Below, I share five photos that I was proud of from each event.
Warsaw Summer Nights, August 2026
So much of photography is about lighting, and indoor lighting is complicated. If you can’t create your own with flash, you have to rely on the venue - either there needs to be house lighting that creates the proper ambiance while still being bright enough, or there need to be spots in the room where lighting is direct enough to capture.
Warsaw Summer Nights proved to be another challenging event to photograph due to lighting and a busy backdrop on the main floor. For that reason, I didn’t post a whole lot of photos from it - I had a bunch of photos I enjoyed, but I lacked enough photos of any individual for an IG post. It was also the last time I took photos from an angle behind the dancing couples, and I don’t think I will return to that side anytime soon.
This first portrait I show here is unique in that it is primarily accented by natural light - the prelims were held in a room that had several tall slit windows. I’m not sure who this dancer is offhand, but he wound up perfectly aligned to one of the windows when I caught this picture. He liked the physical photo I gave him, so I hope he doesn’t mind me using it here - if you know who he is, please tell me!
Next up is Niko while he was MCing. I try to capture photos of the people who are working the event, especially during prelims - judges, MCs, DJs… it’s a joy to be able to take such shots. Here, Niko’s orange suit and calm demeanor carry the photo, which has a relaxed energy.
I keep coming back to Irina as a subject because she’s just so present. For this event, she was Head Judge, so she was always around on the floor doing her thing. This photo was taken over someone’s shoulder, which gives an interesting dynamic to the bottom left corner, and focuses the photo on the line of her gaze.
One of the challenges of the main floor was the lighting. The ceiling had these small vertical spotlights, so there were patches of light across the floor. For this one photo, I got lucky that Zhenya looked directly up at the light, accenting something in the music. It makes for a really nice effect on her face, though her eyes are still shadowed.
Rounding out Warsaw Summer Nights is a photo of Philipp that I’m proud to say currently resides on his mother’s fridge (or wherever she put the print of it). The background is on full display here, but the brightest parts of it are out of frame or behind Philipp. The difficulties of shooting in this room were apparent throughout, and I only captured good shots facing into the crowd, with the exception of this photo.
After Warsaw Summer Nights, I spent some time understanding white balancing better - I had found that I was fighting a lot with ensuring that whites were the right temperature in my photos. There is a marked increase in quality of my photos from this point forward, as well - things started to come together cleanly.
Uptown Swing, August 2026
Uptown Swing was a return to the venue of Nordic, with the best lighting since Asia because the venue lights were updated and I had a faster lens to work with.
My photos from Uptown really came out well from start to finish. I’ll talk less about my learnings and just showcase photos from here on - I think adjusting camera white balance and changing my editing style (to my current one) were the last large things I needed to do, and I did both for Uptown.
First up is another swag shot, this time with the event shirt on Jakub. This was the first time I placed myself directly along the starting slot of a spotlight, and it paid off for this moment. Emeline’s hands are visible around Jakub’s neck, and the crowd behind gives a nice backdrop. Really happy with this logo shot for the event.
I always return to the classic portrait in stillness, and this next photo is a prime example of that. Andreas was positioned particularly well for this photo, watching the dancers on the floor. The wood tones and his skin tone complement each other nicely, and the only spot of color is his irises.
Rafał judging here is framed with two spotlights around his head, giving a background dynamic that accents the foreground subject. The gaze is to the side of the camera but not in an ‘away’ way - it works very well as a focused portrait.
This photo of Marcus is pure joy - him in the focus, Manxi off to the side with her laughter still visible. The Uptown banner made for a great backdrop, as it doesn’t reflect light or blow out, but instead carries darkness. I like the out-of-focus competitors, as well - identifiable but far enough back that they don’t interrupt the subject.
Finally, Hilma was one of my favorite subjects at Uptown this year, because her J&J competition shirt was hit by the light so nicely and contrasted with the background perfectly. This shot is an example of that - the bright white-and-blue floral shows cleanly against the muted dark red-and-purple background.
The photos that came out of Uptown were my best yet, because lighting, background, camera settings, and experience all came together at once.
Bavarian Open, September 2026
Bavarian had a difficult background, great lighting, and exciting subjects - routines, which I hadn’t photographed since Asia. My improved skillset enabled me to capture more interesting moments within choreography, and I have some project pieces coming out of this event that I will display by early November.
The first photo here is from the rising star division. I positioned myself at the front-left corner of the floor, which gave me a different angle on several poses. Sometimes, it worked out really well - like this shot of Tobi and Aggi. The dynamism is apparent, with her leg wrapping around his torso and her foot pointed on the far side; the lighting reflects well off their costumes, and I was able to darken the background staircase so that it’s not intrusive.
This next photo is one of my best routine shots so far - helped by how well Joel and Chantelle’s costumes worked with the lighting in the venue and my temperature-cooling, color-softening editing style. Her fingertips landed just inside the frame, which is a constant struggle with my portraits; I want the tight telephoto frame and its impact on the viewer, but I also want to capture full limbs unless I’m intentionally excluding them. Moving subjects make that difficult.
This photo of Dirk feels like a classic profile portrait painting - face in near-perfect profile, body turned towards the camera, mohawk ever so slightly cut off in an artistic way. The dog tags from Berlin Swing Revolution give a nice contrasting accent on the shirt. Serious face for serious times.
This shot of Luca and Michelle is a great calm moment. Pre-dance, heads touching. His gaze hits just to the right of the camera, and his face is lighted evenly, with minimal shadow. Her top accents well as the only color in the scene, and her hair stands out in the light.
Finally, a bit of action with PJ and Karin. This shot was from quite far away, so it’s cropped in slightly from the original. The moment is what gets it - her peeling his hand away from over her eyes, smile peeking out. Karin’s hair is one of the best color accents I’ve found in photographing dance, and it stands out here as it falls in the dip.
My photos at Bavarian were another step forward, but there wasn’t an aha moment - I’d figured out a lot of things and was applying them. My editing style was also cemented at Bavarian, and the photos in these posts from prior events are all re-edited to match it. I’ll have a separate post on editing at some point.
Safari Swing, September 2026
Safari Swing wasn’t really a dance photography event, despite being a dance event. As the name suggests, we were on safari - so it was predominantly wildlife photos. I brought only my wildlife lens with me, and only a few photos were of people.
Don’t worry, Safari Swing will get its own posts. We’ll skip it for now.
Norwegian Open, October 2026
Norwegian Open was a great photographic event for me, due to an ideal lighting setup combined with unfettered access to stand anywhere in the room. I really can’t overstate how good the lighting was here - operated spotlights plus an interesting ambiance really made it a photographer’s paradise.
My first shot here is one that I also featured on Instagram - Stacy walking to her seat, judging tablet in hand. Everything about this shot works, and it’s one of my best so far. The lighting across her, accenting the tips of her hair; the spotlights on the ground; the angle of the look. Pure Maleficent energy.
The next shot, of the event director Ida, was also featured on Instagram, and shows the quality of the event’s lighting - it feels like a high-end production, lit like a TV show. The suit helped the vibe, and everything here combines into a great photo.
This next shot is of Olga, poised on one foot, at the edge of the audience. Again, the lighting in the room was working overtime to ensure that great photos happened. The stripe of light across the judge’s face at the edge of the frame adds an interesting visual element.
Igor is another subject that I return to a lot, in part because he puts himself in such great photo situations. The last two photos here both feature him.
The first is with Stacy, fully dipped. The real power of this photo is in the lighting. This was originally in portrait format, but I cropped it to a landscape format because the energy was traveling from left to right.
Finally, during Norwegian Open, Igor and Fernanda ran their routine for the last time, and I was lucky to be at an angle where I captured this shot. The way the lights play together with their costumes is really something, and the line directly towards me makes this photo distinct.
Six months into my dance photography journey, I’ve taken hundreds of photos that I am proud of, and made a ton of people smile with either a physical or digital portrait of their own. I’m really glad I started this journey, and I look forward to where it takes me over the next six months and beyond.
If any events want to have me visit, please DM @WaxingPhotonic - happy to talk!
As for this blog - I’ll be producing regular long-form content here; Instagram is great as a venue for my photos, but I want to go even further in depth on them, and on the people around them. Please subscribe if you like what you’ve seen so far!