Ak-Maral dancers

Teaching photography has turned up the pressure on my photography skills. Just like when I first upgraded to a DSLR (my precious Rebel XS) and then really took a leap up to the Canon 7D, I feel like I’m forcing myself to just be better.

So, with this mind-set of constant improvement, I went to a dance performance Friday night and took over 800 pictures. Despite the poor lighting, fast twirling, and a hyperactive child sitting in front of me (who made it his mission to jump in front of the camera), I think I managed to take a few decent shots.

I’m not happy about how noisy most of them turned out, but I definitely taught myself a few new things between constantly switching between modes and messing with the exposure settings. More pictures after the jump.

The show itself was a dance troupe that performed various traditional dances ranging from Russian, Moldavan, Ukrainian, Kazakh and Kyrgyz. It was impressive; these dancers put a lot of effort and emotion into their dancing.

And the costumes? Gorgeous! There had to be at least twenty different dances, each routine with it’s own colorful outfit.