Cirque du Mel

Unusually for us we went out to celebrate Halloween. It was a gothic-circus themed fundraiser for our friend Melissa held in a night club in Clonakilty.

There was a lively gypsy folk/punk band to warm us up, a crazy dj who played what can only be described as circus jazz, and an androgynous beatboxing guitarist in a multicoloured leotard who got the whole place jumping.

Best of all was the amazing range and style of costumes, people had really pulled out all the stops. There were pirates and vicars and rock stars and insects, fairies, devils and clowns, as well as all the usual zombies, vampires, witches and mummies, there was even a Jesus.
But this pretty girl in her burlesque headdress was one of my favourites.

It was hard getting a good shot at all, I was well out of my comfort zone photographically. Clearly there's a knack to getting good candid shots. The official photographer there was a large facepainted man hanging with very big cameras and using a flash, yet he seemed to move about getting his shots completely unnoticed. But I felt that as soon as I lifted my camera to my face everyone sort of melted away.

A fun night. Lots of old friends, many of whom we didnt recognise at all under all the facepaint!
And Melissa herself was there by skype, and it was amazing to be able to chat to her, and for her to see some of the fun and merriment being had in her name.