On Friday night I had the privilege of covering the Chinese New Year Celebrations at Dooley’s Catholic Club in Auburn. Wow! What a fun night with fantastic displays of Tai Chai dances including a fan and a sword dances then of course the Dragon dances who paraded right through the entire club. There was also a male and female singer. I’ve never associated Chinese with western or opera styled singing but wow, this couple were up there with the best of them what fantastic voices. It really was a great nights entertainment. For me I’ve got to admit I think this was my hardest assignment ever, everything was stacked against a photographer, just about everything was working against me. The Tai Chai team wore these beautiful bright yellow/gold shiny satin  head to toe outfits. Looked fabulous but an absolute nightmare to photograph, the stage lighting wasn’t quite bright enough not to use a low powered flash which of course just reflected off the satin fabric. It also reflected back onto their faces giving them a golden glow. And just when you thought it couldn’t get much more difficult they turned on the stage spotlights which was cycling through a range of colours, red, blue, green . The rich red backdrop did at least help provide some contrast as did the wooden floors. There was a really good crowd watching so you can imagine how well the air conditioning managed, at one stage a lovely lady passed me a handful of paper napkins because I was drenched in perspiration. It was certainly a challenging night but at the end of the day I was pretty happy with  the results.