Fire dancer

The finale of the kecak fire dance in Bali is a performer who gets up close and personal with fire.  He dances in it, he kicks it with his feet, he plays with burning embers in his mouth, and he sits down in it.  It's pretty astonishing.  After the performance, I spoke with this man and he told me he'd been doing this for 24 years, and then he showed me his tongue which was black from the ash of the smoldering palm husks he had put in his mouth during the show.  In order to photograph this and capture the peak moment,  I used the Canon 5D Mark III on continuous shooting at six frames per second.  My settings were 1/200, f/8, 2500 ISO, and I used a 24-105mm lens.  Because I hired the entire dance company for my photo tour group, we could position ourselves anywhere we wanted, including on the stage itself, to get the best shots.  For this picture, I was below stage level shooting up at the performer.