In real life, those pants are entirely different shades (mine are a medium tan and hers a light mauve), so we figured we were in good shape. But somewhere between the lighting in the room that day and the video compression in post-production, both pairs of pants turned into a washed-out gray.

As far as shoes are concerned, you will rarely see similarity since men's shoes are almost always black while the women's are usually somewhere between flesh-tone and orange. Occasionally a lady will show up only with her practice shoes (which look like men's shoes but with high heels), but we try to discourage that.

As time goes on, we're getting better at figuring out what works and what doesn't. But variations still tend to be spur-of-the-moment video shoots at random times whenever we can get them (any other way and we wouldn't be able to get them out every week -- we hardly do anyway). So for the time being, they may be less than perfect.

Our model for good set, lighting, and costuming is the Donald & Kasia stuff (see Samba step#1 and Rumba step#1). That's where we hope to be with all of our videos someday. In the meantime, this is all we've got. So if you're confused, refer to the man's and lady's parts... that's what they're there for!

Regards,
Jonathan Atkinson
www.ballroomdancers.com