Most skimpy bars have signs that say ‘no photos of the girls’ – but photographer M Ellen Burns earned the women’s trust to capture what their life is really like
Not long after M Ellen Burns arrived in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, the state’s borders closed to the rest of Australia and the world for the first time in history. The photographer had been on a road trip from the Blue Mountains to visit her partner’s parents in WA when Covid-19 first began to spread; now she was well and truly stuck. She found work shooting for the town’s tourist board, but a chance meeting with a local barmaid introduced her to the other jewels in Kalgoorlie’s crown: skimpy bars.
Burns photographed several skimpies at work between 2021 and 2023 with their full consent
