This took a while for a number of reasons. One was the intro image for this posting. The exposure was probably my favorite for a number of reasons – but it was a nightmare to process. The solid blinkety-blank blue light that was on April at the time was the worst of this lot. Over the last month I tried converting the RAW file at least four times, in three different converting applications. Each led to disaster and unusable files. I must really enjoy beating my head against a solid brick wall. So this week-end I went back to the most promising path, converting the RAW in Capture One, and tried another path. And I got something I could at least work with – mostly. The process left the arms and hands, which were being shadowed strangely, almost black – Nan probably could have painted this picture faster than I did all the brush-work on it. But here it is – Havre de Grace's own April Monique looking like thise lucky enough to attend the Gala saw her. I can’t wait to print this one – if my darn printer ever gets here…

As I took breaks from the image of April, I worked up the following seven images – completing my Bellydance folio for this year. And this time I have names – again thanks to April. And definitely check them out in the folio where they look larger, better and are downloadable: HERE… (these will probably be moved soon but I will leave a link here when that happens – as events are shot sometimes their placement needs take on a life of their own). It seems belly-dance includes a lot more than I originally expected, as seen in some of the images below. It seems that most of these are class instructors and/or award winning dancers.

First, we’ve watched sword dancers before. This masked lady was a little intimidating the way she swung those things around. Here’s two of her, the approach followed by the I’m-ready-to-take-you-out stance. I love the eyes – here’s Megan Lee:

Next is BamBam on the left (gotta love some of these names) – she added a little Renoiresque voluptuousness to the show, nice. And Sabiha on the right, displaying lots of “attitude”.

I caught Emily Gonzaga, on the left, in mid spin – she can move. I had to zoom out a tad and later crop in just to make sure I caught everything in the frame. On the right is Jordanah Ashvah, who did more of a traditional dance, using the woven basket in a similar way as others used the sword – sort of a “kinder/gentler” touch. As with all of these, while the solid color lighting, whether it be yellow, red, magenta, orange or blue (arrrrgh), created issues in conversion to b&w, getting true color would have been impossible.

Finally, and this is definitely a favorite for both of us, is Kalistra. Every once and a while you watch someone who just stikes you as someone you think you would like to get to know. She had me coming up with titles for my shot, like “You’re six hours late, where the hell were you?” She got some great cheers and applause at the end – as did all the performers.

I can’t stress this enough – anyone who attends one of the local bellydance haflas is going to be glad they did. The ladies put on a great show… Again, these can all be found full size on the 2021 Events folio page HERE (for now).