There were fire dancers at Confluence Park in Denver tonight.

[intheflow]

Some of them were quite good! And I was lucky enough to get to shoot them.






These next few feature people dancing with lit hula hoops!









These next couple are from my abstract series entitled "Man Trapped in Swirly Flames." :rofl:





This woman had nearly perfect form and poise. The crowd before her is both spectators and the drummers that the dancers danced to.



There was a fire breather...



...and a fire eater.







We left shortly after this. It was just about one of the most fun things I've shot in long, long time!

[hippywife]

1. What fun!

Did you know they were going to be there or did you just come up on them? Some of those shots are really great!

:hi:

[intheflow]

5. I guess they're there every Sunday night

during the warm months. I went to an early evening dinner party with some (much) younger friends. One of them does this; in fact, she's the second photo down. So she suggested we go when it started getting dark.

[tekisui]

2. Great shots!

That was a lot of fun to look at. I love the fire dancers.

[blueraven95]

3. wow!

so cool!

:hi:

[Mira]

4. AMAZING what they did and what you did. How DID you

shoot these, I would have no idea how til you tell me.

They are sooo special and most are spectacular.

[intheflow]

6. These shots were all brought to you via trial and error.

:rofl:

I shot some at 800 speed and some at 1600, some with flash and some without, at a wide variety of shutter speeds (whatever I thought I could get away with hand-held). I think most of the really good ones were shot with a shutter speed between 60 and 4 when the flames were near the faces, or many people were dancing at once so there was more light. What you're not seeing in this thread is the photos that were completely worthless: black with spots of lights and no discernable people at all. I took maybe 250 photos to get these few gems.

[Mira]

7. And gems they are. Thank you for answering, it tells me that

the way I take my pictures is right on. Every which way.
:)

[Blue_In_AK]

8. Great shots, ITF.

We always have fire dancers at our winter festivals, but they're certainly not shirtless like these guys. :rofl: I love your photos.

[intheflow]

9. There was one kid who was pretty good.

But he wore a ton of baggy clothes and caught himself on fire twice! :scared: Do Alaskan fire dancers ever catch themselves on fire?

[Blue_In_AK]

10. I've never seen one caught on fire,

but I'm not sure how they avoid it.

[alfredo]

11. I used to "breathe fire" but since I've grown a beard, it's too risky.

[JeffR]

12. The luck element is a magical part of photography

as long as it's courted with skill. That second shot alone ranks with anything I've ever seen posted here by you or anyone. Really wonderful.