Sunday 14 March 2010

Fuel Girls - Cafe de Paris

I thought about writing about some frustrations and low moods i've had in the last week or so with my photography but decided to just write about last night.

After shooting a lot of burlesque shows and the MOB girls at Facedown i've been dying to photograph the Fuel Girls perform. In my opinion they are the best alternative dance troupe around and it's a nice contrast to burlesque.

A friend has been dancing with them for some time now and she very kindly allowed me to come down and take some photos of them performing at Cafe de Paris, a venue i very much love. I really wasn't sure what to expect, didn't know what type of club night it would be, what the crowd would be like or what the Fuel Girls performance would be like. It really wasn't my kinda club/scene but I had a good time shooting none the less. There were some pretty cool podium dancers on beforehand as well. One of the things I like about photographing performers and bands is the fact that they don't really acknowledge photographers and I think that helps the shots come across a lot less contrived or staged but sometimes knowing someone's taking a photo can be fun. There was one of the dancers who several times saw me taking photos and held poses or dancied into the camera with a cool smile that made a nice change (so thank you to her!).

Club lighting is quite dim so I found it a little hard to shoot at times as I had to have a pretty slow shutter speed but the Fuel Girls came out a did a fire routine which allowed me to shoot faster.

I really enjoyed their performance and I got covered in kerosene (or whatever fuel they use) and Champagne but it was worth it. It wasn't always easy covering the stage with 2-3 girls on the stage with a couple more on podiums at the side but i'm quite pleased with the shots.

I shot pretty much the whole time in black and white and I know it's not the best way to capture fire but I think it's show the shape of the flames pretty well and might be something different to a lot of the other Fuel Girl photos.

I definitely want to shoot them again. Knowing what their performance is like I think I might be able to do a better job next time. So thank you Fuel Girls for last night!


The podium dancers





Fuel Girls







Some other photos from the night are here.

More of the Fuel Girls photos are here.

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