Gotham Girls Roller Derby

Queens of Pain before their entrance on to the track

Back in April I covered my first roller derby match. I was stoked. It was always something I wanted to shoot. When I was living in Austin, roller derby had just started to get some interest. But I never had the chance to check it out. So when I found out my friend skated for the Queens of Pain I jumped at the chance.

The NY league is called the Gotham Girls Roller Derby (GGRD) and consists of 5 teams. Once a month they battle it out at Hunter College. But between that there are tryouts, practices, fundraisers, and all the planning that goes with putting on a match. Even if your team isnt playing you are helping in some capacity with setting up and running the match. The match I caught was between The Queens of Pain vs. Bronx Gridlock.  I obviously had my favorite team going in but by the end I was impressed by everyone who skated.

I knew the basic rules of the game but once the match started it took me awhile to get my bearings. I had to find the right angles to to catch the most action. I concentrated on the jammers, the ones who do the scoring, for alot it. But people were crashing into each other all over the place. That was another thing,  being on the track you had to watch out for flying bodies. Most of the match I shot around 2500 ISO to stop the action as much as I could. But at times I threw on the flash and dragged the shutter to show how fast these girls were moving. I also made sure to catch the of track action too. The fans. The S&M cheerleaders. The cowboy roping half time show. There was alot to shoot.

In the end the Queens of Pain lost but that was ok because it was a blast to shoot. These ladies put in alot of hard work on and off the track to make  GGRD happen and it really comes out at the match.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 8th, 2009 at 11:37 pm and is filed under Featured, Sports and tagged with Bronx Gridlock, GGRD, Gothtam Girls Roller Derby, Hunter College, NY, Queens of Pain, roller derby, skating. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.