Kakheti, Georgia

Back in eastern Georgia.

Top - an ancient tiny car, long past service

Next 3 - last of the grape harvest

Bottom - Luka giving us a number on the piano

Erisioni Rehearsal, Tbilisi, Georgia continued

Three more swordfighting shots and a row of women dancers round out our selection. Tomorrow - more from Kakheti province.

Erisioni Rehearsal, Tbilisi, Georgia continued

It's ALL about the sword-fighting dance today, as promised, topped with the single "sparks flying" shot I managed to get from many frames. It was worth it.

NB I haven't calibrated my monitor for optimum realism of display. So if these images look a little flat on your monitor, I'll blame that.

Erisioni Rehearsal, Tbilisi, Georgia continued

(Hope you're not getting tired of blur.)

The top 3 frames of today's set of 5 show a sword-fighting dance, which ends when the woman holding a white scarf (top) drops it between two of the feuding men. I avoided using flash at all for this dance as I was hoping for trails to be left by flying sparks as the swords clashed - the best part of the dance. And I wasn't disappointed: stay tuned for tomorrow's post, which will show this.

Erisioni Rehearsal, Tbilisi, Georgia continued

Still experimenting. All 5 of today's frames use panning - moving the camera in the direction of motion while using a slow shutter speed to blur the background. In these cases, the shutter was slow enough to also blur the subjects; and a bit of fill-in flash froze them briefly as well, just in case things weren't complicated enough!

I was certainly having fun. There's nothing like the instant gratification and education of seeing digital results before your eyes as soon as you've shot them.

Erisioni Rehearsal, Tbilisi, Georgia continued

More from the amazing rehearsal of yesterday. I never tire of seeing and hearing these performances - they always thrill with their combinations of impossible strength and stamina (men jumping high in the air to land on their shins, women gliding across the floor in long dresses, foot movements invisible). Static photographs, to my mind, convey far too little of the excitement and energy which abounds and overflows into the audience.