Burleigh Fire Twirling

Through my doofing I’ve found that I know quite a few people into firetwirling with both Poi and Staff. There’s regular meets in Brisbane on Wednesday nights, and there’s a growing group of people meeting at Justin Park in Burleigh Heads (down on the Gold Coast) on Sunday nights. Bob, Brian and I were coming back from our mountain climbing expedition, and they are crazy Poi fiends so we went to check it out.

Shion, someone that we met at the April Fools’ Doof was due to come along as well - he’s a kickass Poi monk of super-1337 abilities - making some of our group look like real amatuers I couldn’t resist the opportunity to get some extended exposure photos of him, so the tripod and camera were taken along to give me something to do.

Bob and his tail Poi
Bob’s Poi don’t show up at night for long exposures, but this photo came out alright with the flash.

Brian one handed double Poi

Shion Painting Corkscrews with fire

Brian’s been practising using two Poi with the one hand, and this is a great example of how it looks with a long exposure shot using fire. Shion’s corkscrews are beautiful in real life, and this shot shows how you can paint some beautiful lines with an extended exposure - I like how it shows how the flame moves through the air.

Shion - Flower Pattern

Brian - Small Fire spin

That flower pattern was actually held for about thirty seconds - Shion’s amazing when it comes to being completely consistent with his moves. You could take quite a long shot and get a very concise pattern. The shot on the right shows Brian keeping the cords short on the Poi and spinning them between his hands and his body - scary if you’ve got loose clothing on, but it works nicely if you can do it

Shion

Shion - Fire Fan

The fire fans are quite amazing when there’s a good routine - as usual Shion makes it look great

Fire and lightning

Whirling LED Patterns

Towards the end of the night, instead of using fire, Shion busted out the LED Poi. The colours are great to watch in real life, but in the photo they make for truly surreal imagery. The photo on the right was right at the end when he wanted to see how some new moves would look, which I was happy to help with