Awesome Derby Poster & Upcoming Bout

Check out the awesome poster for the upcoming bout on August 31st in Hobart. I plan to be there making a nuisance of myself with the camera and speedlights. Make sure you come along too!

South Island Sirens Roller Derby League v Perth Roller Derby August 31, 2013

Officiated by Zebras Without Borders

Featured skater Kristina Paul aka Minge the Merciless.

Poster by www.jadegordey.com

More Info at the Facebook Event Page

The original photo before made into this awesome photo is this:

Kristina Paul aka Minge the Merciless at South Island Sirens vs Queen Bees (VRDL) June 2013

Roller Derby Photo Contest

Johnny Loxwheels @ Vic/Tas Tournament Long Weekend - June 2013

One of the coolest things about shooting Roller Derby is the monthly competition run by Junior (Robert Scheer), a full time photo journalist in Indianapolis and amazing derby photographer.

There are two sections that you can submit photos in to: Action and Feature. The limit is two per section and you must have taken the photos within the month of the competition.

I try to enter this every month to learn and hopefully improve. It's heaps of fun to see what everyone else enters and to see your work next to theirs. It's also means that you spend a fair bit of time comparing and trying to workout what the judges where looking for.

So June 2013 results are in and I snagged a second place in the feature section with a portrait of Johnny Loxwheels. All the shots I entered for the month where shot at the massive Vic/Tas Tournament long weekend in Hobart. I must give thanks to Carmen Jay for helping me choose my entries for the month. I had 8 bouts to shift through to enter only 4 images. It was a massive help to have another set of eyes look at my narrowed down selection.

See all the results at the flickr site:

More information about the contest can be found at:

VDR Graduation Bout

This weekend saw the graduation bout for the new "freshies" at Van Diemen Rollers. This means that they are competent enough with their skills to play in a bout with all the hits and shouldn't get hurt (well to much).

I have photographed these bouts for a couple of years now and took the opportunity to do something totally different than I normal do. Firstly I used zones with my strobes. This basically meant that I could turn them on and off in different areas and change their output level as well. Secondly, instead of documenting the bout, I took time to look for particular shots. Lastly while I didn't really think about it during the bout I knew that I really wanted to try just doing a black and white bout.

I have this love of really contrasty black and whites, the punch they deliver visually can be amazing. While I don't suggest this is always the way to go, in this case it was what I really wanted to do. The only images in colour are the team group shoots.

Check out the full galleries at: