Thursday-evening jackpot

Some fruits of Joshua's labor
Originally uploaded by gwilmore

I attended a dance exhibition at the Fred Astaire studio this past Thursday evening, where I took nearly 400 pictures, including about 50 which I deleted as I went along. Fast-action photography is quite challenging, so I figured I would be lucky if as many as 20 of the images turned out well enough to post on Flickr. Having looked at all of them in my computer, it now appears that only about 10 will ultimately make the grade, but that's okay; in fact, it really is about par for the course.

Besides, this image, standing alone, would have made the evening's efforts worthwhile even if none of the others had turned out at all. Click on the image and read the story, which I think adds some extra punch to the photo itself. I consider this to be one of the best photographs I have ever taken, and the expression on the young lady's face is what really made this one. She and her instructor, Joshua Smith, were doing a progressive waltz, and the line of dance passed within about six feet of where I was sitting with my camera. I took a number of photos during this dance, including several others composed essentially the same way as this one. But deciding which of them to upload to Flickr was a no-brainer if ever I saw one.