I think it’s important that no matter what level you are at as a photographer that shooting for the pure joy of it needs to be part of your life. Now I must state that most of my stock shooting is fun to me. However, recently I have done some photography that is a little different, in that is a lot of fun, but other than sharing it on Facebook, I don’t think I’ll ever do anything with it.

I have told part of this story before, but I recently did some roller derby themed portraits and in pursuit of backgrounds for these images I went to a bout. Well, I wasn’t that fond of the composite portrait I made from that background and did not include that specific one in my online portfolio. However, I had a great time at the bout.

Thus, I returned to Emerald City Roller Girl bouts. Interesting thing, it seems to get more exciting with each successive bout. I’m not sure if the women were playing the game with more intensity each time I went, or it was something about becoming more familiar with the sport that made it seem so, but by my last bout (also the last of their season) this past weekend, it was nail biting intense all night long.

This last time, I also decided to concentrate on the “moments” on the track as well as the action. In my experience derby is very interesting in that it is very intense while a jam is going on and the women are hitting each other hard (more like “checking” in hockey rather than a hit in boxing), then the whistle blows for a time out and the ladies are friendly and jovial. This makes for some great “moments” to photograph and the folks on Facebook seem to like these photos as much as the action photography.

Here is the total collection of the championship and the earlier Furies bout.