"Derby Brats, Copper Queens, and Furious Truckstop Waitresses" (c) 2007 Stu Jenks
Lavender Pit told me before the bout that I was the only official photographer tonight, that their regular photog wasn't there. (A few weeks ago, when Zoe OK'd me being one of the official photogs of Tucson Roller Derby, I mentioned that I'm more comfortable being the Second Photog, not the Primary, for I do more artistic shots. She was fine with that. I was fine with that. Things change.) Then one of the refs came up to me, while I was sizing up the track from inside the circle of the rink, (a place I have envied to be for years), and said that they had no one to shot the Derby Brats, and would I do that for them.
"Sure," I said with a smile on my face.
Inside though, I'm saying to myself, 'Oh, Shit. I don't have the 1000 dollar lens I had last bout, that I borrowed from a friend of a friend. I just have my not-fast-enough lens tonight. I'm really nervous now.'
I shot both the bout between the Furious Truckstop Waitresses and the Copper Queens, and the Derby Brats exhibition too. My heart rate was higher than any other time I've ever used a camera I think. I had to shot in JPEG instead of RAW, because I just had only so much room on my two photo cards. I think I shot 300-400 images, dumping 100 while I was still inside the rink that night. (That's equivalent of 10 rolls of film thereabouts. Like shooting a wedding, back in the day.)
As I was shooting, I knew I need a longer lens, a faster lens, but I made do, like I always do, whether I'm using a 50-year-old Rollei or an ancient Brownie. I used an old film technique and pushed the shots, underexposing everything, so as to get a faster available shutter speed. I prayed I could bring them up later, in the Photoshop CS2.
Good news. I was able to, later, reawaken these images in my computer, after working on them a bit. Not that hard really, just time consuming. Got 30 images I'm happy with, happy enough to send to the powers-that-be at Tucson Roller Derby, for publication on their website. But it was nerve-wracking, and if I decided to shot TRD next year, I will only do it with a much faster lens and four gigs of memory on my cards.
Bottom line for me though is that I really hope the Brats like their shots. The sweet thing about digital photography and the Web is that as soon as Lavender gets these images, she can send them far and wide, and they will be on the computer and cellphone screens of those kids in nano-seconds. A fragile technology, computers, but it does have many benefits, to 'Build Community' if we choose to do that, rather than simply surfing the Net for Porn, trolling dating sites, or watching Bad TV on Youtube, all of which I have done sometime in the past. Feels good to give a 11-year-old who is excited about Roller Derby (and who is, like myself, reading the last Harry Potter book, as we speak) a nice image that they can see right here, right now, and for years to come, God willing and the creek don't rise. Let's just hope that some nutjob person or government doesn't explore an electromagnetic pulse over Nebraska and wipe out all our integrated circuits.
Oh, by the way. The Waitresses beat the Queens by a score of 120 to 62.
"Cheap Ore on Turn Three"
"Cheap Ore after the Jam"
"The Waitresses Being Introduced"
"Ruby Hellcat"
"Doe, Blue and Ruby"
"Metal, Eeka and a Ref"
"Doe, Looking Back at the Pack"
"Doe in the Penalty Box"
"Flo, Leading the Jam Again"
"Peaches' Guns"
"Peaches Out of Bounds"
"Four Brats in the Pack"
"Green Scream, Lead Jammer"
"Green Scream, Angel Wings"
"A Tall Green Scream"
"A Jammin' Violent Femme"
"The Brat Pack"
"Eight Legs on the Line"
"A Violent Femme, being Introduced"