How a fine-art photographer recast the lives of exotic dancers through a female gaze

Elizabeth Waterman was desperate.

In setting out to photograph exotic dancers for "Moneygame," her book depicting strippers from a respectful, humanizing and refreshingly female perspective, the fine art photographer never anticipated how many clubs, dancers and publishers would say no.

So she started bringing doughnuts for the bouncers; she won over dancers by helping them gather dollar bills from the stage.

"I just wanted these girls to like me so bad," she said with a laugh at her book's launch party in October. "Collecting dollars is a big job. Some of the bigger cities like Miami have full-time busboys who sweep up dollars for the dancers. I just wanted them to know I was on their side."

": Where Women Rule the, is the product of Waterman's perseverance. Over the course of four years, she visited more than 30 clubs in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Las Vegas and New Orleans, gaining her subjects' trust and shooting them primarily on 35-millimeter and 120-millimeter film.