Roller Derby

I’ve decided the candid shots are better than the actions shots for me.
I can capture action but it’s just not that compelling to me.
Besides, there’s several photographers there who seem to specialize in the action shots.

The new lens came through in a big way:

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Bowie Ibarra (aka Julio E. Glasses), Color Announcer for The Texas Roller Girls.

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I was struck by how the roller derby rink was reflecting in his sunglasses. Click to see the full sized image and you’ll see what I mean….

This past Sunday I was back at Verizon Wireless Theater, camera in hand, to shoot some roller derby.

As I mentioned previously, I wanted to try out the 28-75mm 2.8 to see what results I could get. I had quite a bit of luck, as it turns out. I am still processing the images, so it’ll be a bit before I get those posted.

To slow down the already time cosuming process of going through a brazillion shots, I have interrupted my typical image processing workflow to single out some pictures for a bit of stylizing. I have started working some images in Photoshop with some good effect. Desaturate to take the pic to black and white and adding a bit of grain and then tweaking the contrast to come up with some trading card-like pictures.

This is Dementia 13 of the Psych Ward Sirens.

This is The Prosecutor of The Machete Betties

I love the candid shots, more so than the action shots.
I think that will be more of my focus.
We’ll see what the net results are when I am through working this batch.

The Houston Roller Derby has been generating quite a lot of buzz lately. Seems that you can’t turn around in this city without bumping into someone who is either a roller derby girl or one of the myriad volunteers, hanger’s on or ever growing minions of rabid roller derby fans.

I work with a roller derby girl, my friend Bill Shirley puts together The Colonel’s Roller Derby Roundup, a combination blog and podcast (of all things) with David Beebe, there’s Myspace after Myspace page for leagues, teams, team members, volunteers and fans. Roller derby seems to be everywhere.

It has been suggested on several occasions, by those who know my love of photography and are affiliated with the derby, that I try my hand at some derby photography. I finally decided to follow up and I contacted the organizers and offered to come out and shoot on spec, the idea being that if I produced pictures they liked and could be used to promote the derby I might be afforded the title of Official Houston Roller Derby Photographer. Basically that would mean that I would have full photographic access to all aspects of the local derby.

This past Sunday I made my way to The Verizon Wireless Theater for the bout. I arrived pretty early so I could get my credentials and get the lay of the land. I wanted to check out the layout and get familiar with the lighting.

After a bit of experimenting I decided to shoot with my 50mm 1.4 lens. I thought this would be the best for no flash and fast action. As it turned out, I got some great portrait shots.

But I struggled with the action shots. Shooting without a flash meant that I had to try to time the shots for when the subject was going to be illuminated. Also, the 50mm lens is challenging at extended distances. I can crop to increase the size of the main subject, but the results are not as good as I would like.

Still, they weren’t all bad…

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With a bit more practice I think I can nail it down. I may whip out the Tamron AF 28-75mm f2.8 XR Di lens next time and see how it performs in these conditions.

The response from the derby organizers and the members has been positive. I have been asked to come back and shoot again, not only at the bouts but at other derby events.

We’ll see how the schedule shapes up. I would like to explore this further.