Dance 2, Lenjeri Middle School, late Jan. 2011

 More of that concert, motion-blurred as before to show more of the action.

Dance, Lenjeri Middle School, late Jan. 2011

Some friends and I were visiting the school where my wife teaches English, in Lenjeri, 20 minutes' walk from our house.  The older students treated us to an impromptu concert with singing, poetry and dance, the latter which I captured in my usual motion-blur style.  Lots of fun.

Mestia, Jan. 25, 2011

Only one photo today, but it's assembled from three (same shot, different exposures) in the HDR style in order to capture the full range of tones such a contrasty scene offers.  Mestia, with Mt. Tetnuldi's pyramidal peak in the background, this midmorning.  This is also the first time I used my new circular polarizing filter.

Winter, Spring Lake, Alberta, Jan. 1, 2011

Just frost on windows, nothing fancy.  But it never fails to thrill me with its endless detail, a different world.

Winter Olymics 2020...?

New Year's Day 2011 at my niece & nephew's place, near Edmonton, Canada - their husky dogs, rarin' to go with snowboarders attached.  A new sport is born?!  Slow shutter speeds and panning to blur the background but stay with the action as much as possible.

Rustavi 2's March 2008 video from Ushguli, AT LAST!

I've had a copy of this soon after it was made, but the subtitles took a lot of work to add.  Every single one needed to be put in just the right place for the right amount of time - and there are about 140 of them.  Many thanks, Terry V, for your hard work with me to finish this thing off at last - I knew you could do it, and I didn't know anyone else who could!  (We changed the original Dean Martin song, quite distorted, for a better one, added all the subtitles and some photos - otherwise it's as it aired.)

The story:  I lived in Ushguli, Svaneti, Georgia, Europe's highest village, for the winters of 2007-8 and 2008-9, teaching English to all of its 50 schoolchildren for free in exchange for room and board.  My first TV event from there was the photos of a set of avalanches which closed the village off for about a month in total.  I took the photos, uploaded them to my blog, had a phone interview with Rusiavi 2 TV Channel, and saw it all put together on the next morning's news - very satisfying.  The TV people were also interested in how I came to live in Ushguli - not a common occurrance for a foreigner.  So they had to come up and film me, and eventually told me that they were on their way "for a couple of days".  I jokingly told the villagers, "A couple of days?!  It takes a couple of days just to get here and back from Tbilisi!  I hope the guys get stuck for a week!"  Well, 1 metre of snow later, that's exactly what happened.  Once they surrendered themselves to the inevitable, they were able to make such a good little documentary that it was chosen as one of the channel's 10 best programmes of the year!  So, at the end of 2008, newly married (civil ceremony, at least), Lali & I were called back to the studio to receive our prize, again on TV.  People STILL recognize me in the street in Georgia - "Say, you're that guy who was taking a bath on TV, aren't you?"  Well, everyone should be famous for something.  Lasha and Levan - great work, still reaping fruit.  Keep up the good work!

Hmmm...

... seems the posts I made ahead of time for early January 2011 have failed to start materialzing.  I'll have to repost them, or post some new ones, really soon.  Stay tuned.