![]() One thing about photography I’ve learned is that taking a good photo is about trust. “I really spent a lot of time getting to know the dancers. And then for the rest of the night, I spent time in the booth with the DJ who would call the girls over and introduce me. She just looked at me and said, ‘Are you always this nice?’ So that was how I got my foot in the door. I told her what I was there to do and I had this little printed-out treatment, this little deck that I had put together. So I remember walking up to her and she literally looked me up and down. He was like, ‘But in order to shoot the dancers, you’re going to have to get permission from the house mum’. Before I actually started shooting this project, I went to Onyx and the manager gave me a tour of the club and showed me the different areas. “I’m super introverted and very shy, this strip club is not a quiet place. People have such negative perceptions of strip clubs, overall, and this project’s premise was to skew those perceptions. I also wanted to highlight the experience in a way that we don’t commonly see. I wanted to go there and visually tell the stories of the girls and portray a sense of fantasy, but also portray their power – the artistry of exotic dancing. And I think with Onyx, that’s exactly what I wanted to do. “One thing with my work is that I try to highlight women and femininity to really capture beauty without it being objectified without it being overly sexy. From that moment, I always told myself, ‘Once I make it in my career, I want to come back and document the club.’ My aunt had a 50th birthday here in Houston and one of the places that we went together, with her friends and my mum, was club Onyx. I remember sitting there and just watching the women… how sensual and confident they were how they took charge of the audience. “I visited Onyx back in 2017 with my family, just very randomly. Here, Raquel shares the full story behind the project, detailing how she discovered the club, her inspirations, and how she gradually learned to build the dancers’ trust. The goal of the project, according to the press release, is to display the “empowerment and inclusivity in strip clubs that society tends to ignore”. But we’re also invited behind the scenes, with Raquel photographing the artists in the safety and privacy of the locker room. ![]() ![]() The dancers are captured onstage, mid-movement, looking otherworldly under the dim, polychromatic lighting of the club. Like her portraits, the emphasis is placed on the tensions between intimacy and illusion. This latest project – although a thematic switch-up – retains many aspects of her signature style. ![]() Texas-born Raquel is primarily known for her editorial work, having created glossy, dream-like portraits of artists like Megan Thee Stallion, Lil Nas X and Travis Scott. After being commissioned by Fotografiska New York, the photographer began documenting performers at Houston’s famed Club Onyx – a space where dancers are encouraged to hone their own creative style, and empowered to negotiate whatever “stripping” personally means to them. In Adrienne Raquel’s new book, ONYX , readers are immersed in the sweat-soaked, neon-lit world of a Texas strip club.
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