Gonio, Adjara, Georgia, August 2010

Don't be getting sick of these motion blur shots! I'm nearly finished with them for now!

Gonio, Adjara, Georgia, August 2010

Slow shutter speed and moving the camera in the direction of motion - that's what this is all about. Digital makes it so easy to see results instantly & make further adjustments

Gonio, Adjara, Georgia, August 2010

Look at 'em go, they make it look so easy

Gonio, Adjara, Georgia, August 2010

Gonio Fortress, site of the TLG welcome to Adjara, is near the Turkish border. Matthias, the Apostle chosen to replace Judas, is buried here, and kiwi fruit is grown. Amazing place. How they danced in the heat I don't know

Gonio, Adjara, Georgia, August 2010

By the way, the dancing was in honour of the TLG first team's arrival in Adjara province, where most of this team will be stationed for its teaching work. (3 lucky ones, myself included, get to be in Mestia, Svaneti.)

Gonio, Adjara, Georgia, August 2010

Yes, it's time for a few more motion-blurred dancer shots, in my opinion the best way to capture dance in a still image. Take a Gravol if they make you dizzy

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.

Interlude: Erisioni Georgian Dancers' Rehearsal, Tbilisi

So I was invited to join some Americans at a rehearsal (out of costume) of the Georgian State National Singing and Dancing Academic Ensemble (a.k.a. Erisioni) in Tbilisi this afternoon. They rehearse every Saturday at their HQ on Rustaveli Ave, right next to where the TMS Gallery, late and lamented, used to be.

I adore Georgian music, singing and dancing - it sets my blood afire. Even without costumes and fancy lighting, this 2-hour performance was a delight. All the more so as we were allowed to take photographs, and I had my camera ready just in case.

I was mostly trying several of my favourite techniques for showing motion in a single frame, all without using a tripod. These include a slow shutter speed to blur the action, coupled much of the time with a bit of fill-in flash to add an instant of frozen time. (The flash on my lovely new machine can be set to what's called "second-curtain synch", which means it fires at the end of an exposure rather than at the beginning. The advantage of this is that the motion trails from the slow shutter are going in the right direction, with the flash coming in at the end of the blur, not at its beginning.) Sometimes, either with or without the flash, I was also panning - moving the camera in the direction of motion while shooting.

Nearly 230 frames later, I was revelling in digital again - instant visible results to check whether what I'm doing works. Yup, I'm delighted with the results. Thanks again, NWB, for the camera - it's changing my artistic life. More of this sequence to follow...

"University" Dance Ensemble, Tbilisi, May 2007

More of those motion-blurred dancers. How else can one show the movement in a still image? (There is a technique which uses both slow shutter speed and flash together in one frame, for blur AND sharpness. I haven't tried much of that yet; it's a future challenge.)