Where's the story?

I don't usually shoot events, because I like to decide for myself whom/what/whether to shoot. However, every once in a while, I do take the camera out to a function and try to see things through the eyes of a photojournalist.

Once I get home, the art director in me takes over. First, I delete the out-of-focus, poorly composed, unflattering, ordinary, and/or duplicate shots. After that, I weed out anything that wouldn't be published or hung on my walls. Finally, I look at what's left, figure out a theme, and remove anything that doesn't fit the theme. (If there's a great photo that I just can't make work this time, I slide it into a "miscellaneous" folder for future consideration.)

I then view the images as a slide show on my PC, several times. Anything that doesn't "wow" me by this time is removed or deleted. The goal is to get down to about 10-15 "signature" shots. I keep asking myself, "What's this person's story and how does it fit into an overall theme?" Once that's done, I Photoshop the remaining images and have 4x6" prints made of my favorites.

When I got back from the PowWow in Warner, NH last weekend, I had about 150 images of the event. I have a higher than average throw-away rate when I am trying to shoot dancers/performers until I understand their moves: where they go, when they pause, etc. After I whittled the selection down to 40-50 images, I further reduced the number to about 20 and Photoshopped the survivors. After a final edit, I had 13 images, five of which are reproduced below: