Wrestling Redux

Rick Waldroup

Veteran
Location
Texas
What started out as a one time lark shooting this stuff has emerged as a long term project, of sorts.:blush:

The photos were shot with a Lumix GX-1 with a variety of lenses.

Dynamic Diamond Dave

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Tag Team Match

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Kissey in Flight

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Mr. Kelly

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Interesting Rick. I would be so torn between shooting as I 'trained' to shoot ... and shooting with style to capture feel over sport impact. I like 'em.

Gary
 
PS- I am scheduled to shoot youth boxing for a local city ... You have inspired me to shoot for 'feel' (for lack of a better word) as well as your standard documentary high impact, vanilla, ho-hum stuff.

G
 
Thanks for the comments, Nic.

Gary, the first time I decided to shoot one of these "events", I went for a traditional approach, but quickly decided to change my style of shooting because of the subject matter. These [performance artists are so over the top and bigger than life, that I felt a traditional style of shooting would not capture the spirit and zaniness of the moment. So I started using weird angles, soft focus, motion blur, toy lenses, increased grain, etc. I started doing stuff that I would almost never do when I am out street shooting. So far, I think it has worked- for most of the shots.

Thanks to everyone for their comments.
 
Stunning and I hope you have more. This could certainly be a documentary/book kind of stuff.

I love Kissey in flight. The hat in focus, makes it seem almost like it was proper (let me put my hat down first).

The last one (Mr. Kelly) brings home the thought that's always in the back of my mind on these guys -- is anything shady going on. You never believe the fights are real, but is there another element involved?
 
Great photos, Rick. Just to add to the previous comments: really interesting composition and good use of selective focusing (Kissey), shadow (Mr. Kelly) and foreground elements (Tag Team Match) to highlight the subject in each image. I need to let go of my preconceived notions of composition and experiment more! Thanks for sharing these.
 
Great photos, Rick. Just to add to the previous comments: really interesting composition and good use of selective focusing (Kissey), shadow (Mr. Kelly) and foreground elements (Tag Team Match) to highlight the subject in each image. I need to let go of my preconceived notions of composition and experiment more! Thanks for sharing these.

Thanks for the comments, Ed. Many, many years ago I had a mentor who taught me two very important things. Early on, I would bring him prints of weird stuff that I was shooting and he would say, "Rick, someone has to shoot this s**t." And then he told me one day, "You are on the right track. When you finally learn the fundamentals of photography, when the technical side becomes second nature to you, then that is the time to throw all that out the window and start the process of learning how to see."

What he was telling me was that once the technical elements are burned into your brain where you don't even think about them while you are shooting- exposure, framing, composition, etc- then the creative side kicks in and that is when the fun starts.:cool::)

I have been trying to follow those guidelines ever since. Most of the time, I fail at my objective. But every now and then, I get it right.

By the way, he also fired me as a sports photographer. He called me the worst sports photographer he had ever seen, and he was right :D I never came back with good action shots. I was always much more interested in side details, what was going on around me, and so on. I found shooting standard sports action scenes dreadfully boring. Also, I simply was not good enough to be a great sports photographer. I envy those guys and gals. It takes real talent, stamina, and perseverance to shoot that stuff. My hat goes off to them.
 
Thanks for the comments, Ed. Many, many years ago I had a mentor who taught me two very important things. Early on, I would bring him prints of weird stuff that I was shooting and he would say, "Rick, someone has to shoot this s**t." ...

LOL!!!!!!!!!!! My first thought was that had to be some news guy.

G
 
Yep, Gary, he was an old school photo editor that worked for the now defunct Dallas Times Herald. He was a real hard ass but I learned a lot from him. I think the main thing he taught me was a sense of humility and something that he always tried to drill into all of the photographer's heads was to always shoot with a compassionate camera.

Unfortunately, I only worked there for about a year before moving to Miami. This was back in the mid 70's. Then, I got married and and got of the PJ business and became an architectural photographer for about 25 years. That was boring as hell, but it paid the bills. And if you can't sing or dance, well you know.......:crying:
 
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