Many of Spain’s regions have much to offer to the photographer, but one of my favourite regions is Andalucía – it has beautiful landscapes, architecture and culture, and is rich in history and traditions.

Our Light & Land tour explores many of the above elements, and this year we added a Flamenco experienceto the programme. It was most enjoyable, yet at the same time tricky to make images in near darkness of the fast - moving dancers. To get sharp images is fairly easily accomplished – higher ISO, short shutter speed and voila–you freeze the dancers’ movements. But I also wanted to keep some of the movement in the image at the same time, as the dancers had dresses and shawls, which were cleverly flung around them.

Finding the shutter speed that allowed for a reasonably sharp face, yet kept the movement in the image at the same time, was challenging, but we had an hour to experiment, and I came away quite happily with a few images that, for me, convey the spirit and passion of the dance quite beautifully.

There are so many different elements of Flamenco - within the song, the dance, the instrumental music – that in one hour we could only catch a first glimpse of this most fascinating art. I am very much looking forward to going back next year to learn more. Astrid McGechan.