Press and PR photography coverage of Diversity Ashley Banjo in Stockton on Tees.

Thousands of people turned out in July to help Britain’s Got Talent winner Ashley Banjo and Diversity dance group get Stockton dancing.

Part of the Sky 1 series Ashley Banjo: the Town That Danced Again, the day drew huge crowds on to Stockton High Street next to the Town Hall, where specially constructed stage platforms had been set up for the professional dancers.

Ashley Banjo is an English street dancer, choreographer and actor, and the programme was all about celebrating Stockton’s dance heritage and reinvigorate the whole town by bringing together everyone from shop assistants and librarians, to care workers and teachers to get them dancing in the streets.

The day was building up to be the hottest of the summer when I arrived an hour before the start of the event. I know the open air space well so I had already visualised where the best photography vantage points would be. This was a big event for the region and as well as the Sky 1 team there were a few other professional photographers from Sunderland to Harrogate there and of course nearly everyone in the audience had their camera phones out.

I knew I would be carrying my kit all day so took my monopod and a handful of lenses including a mega wide angle. The crowd was packed so the monopod and camera set on 2 sec timer were particularly useful in getting shots above the heads and with some good views of the various stages. 

As this live event was also being filmed, several of the dance routines were done in segments and repeated until the director was satisfied. It was interesting to see the clock in Stockton’s Town centre being stopped and rewound for continuity several times!

I was kept busy darting about documenting not just the dancing but the street party atmosphere of the day too. Everyone was in party mood, including my daughter and her friends who had gone along. Moving through the crowd I swapped out my lenses to do some fly on the wall photos and get some close ups of the dancers as they encouraged the crowd to join in, choreographed by Ashley Banjo himself. Some of the youngest ones were particularly good, and showed no sign of nerves at all the cameras going off as they performed.

At one point the kind people manning the Vodafone stand let me take some shots from their stand overlooking the sea of people, which was a fantastic vantage point to see everything that was going on.

 It was a brilliant day that generating some amazing pictures, and Ashley’s tweet from @AshleyBanjo summed up its success in a nutshell:  ‘What a day...What a night....Amazing times with amazing people. Stockton we love you and we will miss you #TTTD #20DV’.

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Direct Website Link to Dave Charnley Photography