Dancing, Diwali 2018 – Austin, Texas

I made this photo using the same technique, through with a different lens, as this photo from last year. It’s a scene from the Raas Garba, an Indian dance, which started after the fireworks show. I used a wide-angle last year and a standard 50mm equivalent lens for this photograph.

If you read last year’s blog post, I talked about the disappointment and the failure I experienced shooting this dance. As much as I like the Olympus system, even with a f1.4 lens, I couldn’t practically raise my ISO high enough to make a crisp, frozen in action photo with the high quality I wanted. The dim lighting and the fast action was just too much.

This year, I brought another camera to rectify this situation, though I’ll talk about that tomorrow. For today, however, I’ve embraced motion blur. Tack sharp photos may be desirable most of the time, but not always. As I move away from the stereotype of what makes a good photograph, I feel more freedom to explore alternatives. Motion blur shows movement and energy. That’s what I choose to show, along with the colorful fun of this Indian dance.