I love Flamenco! The guitar sounds at its best, the dance is powerful yet expressive, and the singing just fits in and sounds like nothing else.

When we heard our friend Sol Acuña was performing her A Tierra Show we were eager to see what this Costa Rican dancer or “bailaora” living in Seville had brought to us: her choreography and also the music played by the group turned out to be superb.

I was not sure about bringing my big camera because I was going to be sitting among the regular public and it can be quite annoying to hear a dSLR shooting bursts next to you. I have photographed Flamenco shows before and I am normally given a spot in the theater where I am as unobtrusive as possible. So I had to pick up my old and trusty Nikon V1 to see if it still worked!

When the show started I could see a photographer with a fast prime shooting from just below the stage. Good. This covered the tight shots. I decided I would focus in showing more of the stage because anyway I didn’t really have fast lenses for the camera and freezing movement would be difficult.

I especially tried to catch the artists interacting with each other. This is very important to me as capturing the dancer in full pose with a guy behind looking away or distracted is a real bummer.

When I have had a chance of doing a shooting session with just the group I can direct them to engaging expressions but during a live show I could only try to keep my eyes in all of the group at once. So much for a group photography composition exercise!

I uploaded these and other photos to my Flickr account. Check them out by clicking here.  Also, to see great Andalusian culture, look up my post about the Seville Fair.

Finally, I tried not to keep shooting the whole time: I was there to enjoy the show and if I am taking pictures I miss the music…

Ole!