Once again, the universe displays a keen sense of irony. Immediately after I post a rant about looking for gigs on Craigslist, I get a good gig from Craigslist. I was invited to shoot a bout for the San Diego Derby Dolls, banked track roller derby. I have a good friend who does flat track and have been to a couple of her bouts, and wound up at a bout in New Orleans once (and found out an old HS crush of mine was a team captain when she crashed right into my lap but that's another story and doesn't go anywhere all that interesting, sad to say) but had never seen banked track, and can't really say I am that familiar with the game.
So, slightly outside my comfort zone. What I try to use my niche, to set me apart when it comes to performance photography, is that I am a performer. Even before my circus days, I was a theatre guy, graduated from the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts Theatre program, so I know circus performance and plays. I can see when the performers are setting up for something, I can see a wrap and anticipate the pose coming up. Not so with Roller Derby. Not familiar with the flow, the action, what the key moves or moments are, in short, no idea what to shoot other than spray and pray. Which I did to a certain extent. But I tried to minimize that.
I got in touch with my derby friend, asked her what pics she would like to see of a bout she was in, then for the technical side I did what anyone does these days when faced with the unknown- I asked google- seriously, what did we do before all the world's knowledge was at out fingertips? Turning to google actually made the sense of being out of my depth worse. Turns out since it's sport action speed and lots of derby venues are horribly lit, the pros get in and set up multiple remote flashes at key points around the track to get their shots. Holy crap, I am used to doing what I can in ambient light, if I am lucky the performers are lit with a decent spot. Multiple remote off camera flashes? Yeah, I have them, I have used them for shooting my family so I can learn my way around lighting. But high speed sync sports fill flash is not something I had ever even contemplated. But what the heck, part of why I am doing this is to expand my horizons and learn something, right? So I packed for bear. Both my speedlights, stands, gaffers tape, remote trigger, strobe frame for the camera and sync cable just in case...
Luckily I overpacked. The Dolls perform in a thankfully well lit arena, so I was able to shoot 1/250 or so at ISO 3200 and be fine. Plenty of light. Got there early, had plenty of time to check things out, try and find good places to shoot, and the best lens. I was torn on this one, the 17-55 was too wide, the 70-200mm was too tight, really wish I had been able to afford the 24-70mm I am planning to drop some tax refund money on, think it would have been just right. Didn't want to miss anything changing lenses, and a second body is also on the list of things to get when I have money, so I had to choose. I shot the first half with the long zoom, the second with the wide. This was the a great gear test, really got to put both lenses and the AF through their paces, and I am happy to say the camera and lenses were plenty fast, the weak part was the photographer- as long as I kept the focus point on the skaters, the system kept up. Out of 540 shots, only 25 were unusable due to poor focus. I can live with that. Shots started getting better towards the end too, started getting used to the flow of the action a bit. Overall happy and a good technical learning experience.
Other than the technical, I had forgotten just how much fun the Derby experience is- and it's even better when I am a small part of it. Even got to shoot a bit from inside the track. It's rock and roll, pumping sound track of hair bands and power ballads, beer, half time rock bands, Gangnam Style dance competitions, and generally being surrounded by strong, powerful, aggressive women who are bucking old school stereotypes. Seriously, if I had a daughter instead of a son, I would want her to grow up to be a Derby girl. (her name would have been Sierra Danger, so she may not have even needed a Derby name) I hope Tucker dates Derby girls (when he's a bit older) I enjoyed the environment, had a great time, one of the refs even called me out for dancing to some 80s tunes between jams. But I got to see the San Diego WildFires take on the DairyLand Dolls visiting from Madison Wisconsin. The home team carried the day. Pleasure Fix provided the half time show. I got some great shots. They will be posted soon, have to do some post processing on them and all that, but here are a couple of teasers to tide you over.....
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