I like

these guys (Oersprong), I’ve seen them perform a few times now. The first time I tried to capture them I noticed that there is no easy way to do this. For starters: it’s dark, so capturing enough light is problematic in itself. Second: they don’t exactly stand still… So it took a little experimenting. The first picture is rather classical: ISO4000, f/2.8, 1/100 sec. But that captures “still” images, and the magic is the movement of the dancers, and the movement of the fire they carry.

So the

second picture is an attempt to capture all that movement. More luck than wisdom, since except for the dancers themselves nobody knows what will happen in the next moments. This one has a shuttertime of 1/3 sec., and an aperture of f/13. Loads of movement in there, and still rather natural colors. But not quite sharp, due to both me shivering in the cold and the dancers refusing to stand still when I want them to.

I hate using

a flash, I hardly ever carry one with me even. But for this show I charged every battery I had, and set everything to flash at the second curtain, only. No pre-flash, no metering flash. I wanted to have the “ray” of firelight trailing the movement, and “freeze” the dancer with the flash. Works pretty well in the third picture.
Except, if you look carefully you’ll see anything can happen while shooting pictures. Look at the shadow: the flash timing is perfect – but it’s not my flash 🙂