Techquila Photography

Bristol Harbour Harlots vs Croydon Roller Derby

kal — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 21:01:45 +0000

Team USA vs Team England

kal — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 20:46:29 +0000

It turned out that the awesomeness that was Team USA vs London Brawling was just a warm-up for the incredible Team USA vs Team England bout. I yelled and arm-waved so much I nearly forgot to take pictures…

Team USA vs London Brawling

kal — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 20:28:54 +0000

It was the hottest derby ticket of the year and I was one of the fortunate ones, so I just had to take a camera. I’m *so* glad I did!

Grime and Punishment – Bout Photos

kal — Sun, 01 Jul 2012 22:04:18 +0000

A follow-up to the portraits posted a couple of weeks ago. I know, I’ve been slack – my excuse is that thte last couple of weeks have been taken up with getting started on skates myself. It seems I may be progressing from observer to participant…

Grime and Punishment – Portraits

kal — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 19:55:33 +0000

This is the first selection of images from the “Grime and Punishment” event hosted by Bristol Roller Derby. These are slightly different from my usual derby pics – firstly I went all digital, lugging around the 5D; and secondly I took advantage of the longer lens and the half-time and post-bout to grab some “portraits”. Some are straight posed portraits, where I think my lack of any real studio experience shines through , but my preferred ones are then “environmental portraits” – i.e. pictures that focus on one player at some point during the bout.

There are a bunch more action photos to come – though in a separate post I think.

Crash Test Brummies Traning Session

kal — Sat, 12 May 2012 20:46:33 +0000

Crash Test Brummies are a relatively new men’s Roller Derby team based (unsuprisingly) in Birmingham. I went down on Sunday to take some pictures at their training session. For a change I used the 5D MkII cranking up the ISO to get shutter speeds that allowed some freezing of the action. I quite like how they turned out, but I’m itching to do it again on good ol’ Tri-X!

ORD vs Swansea Slayers

kal — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 23:24:33 +0000

Photos from Oxford Roller Derby’s bout against the Swansea Slayers on 3rd March 2012. Once again the Oxford team put on a great show – didn’t get the win but definitely pushed the Swansea Slayers hard at times. For my money the stars of the match jammer-wise were Swanseas Pixie of Pain, and Oxford’s Kapow. From the blockers it was pretty hard to pick (to my untrained eye). The home crowd was way bigger than the crowd for the visitors, but I’m pretty sure our side was louder.

Congrats to the Swansea Slayers on putting together a great afternoon of Roller Derby – more pictures from the supporting bout to come soon…

Technical Stuff: Again I was there trying to keep up with the action with a couple of manual focus film cameras. This time I kept it simpler, 50mm lens on one, 90mm on the other with no lens swapping, both pretty much shot wide open all the time to cope with the poor indoor lighting. The film is Portra 400, pushed to 800 ISO…which I am starting to love.

Its the End of The World…Part One

kal — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 20:57:17 +0000

Last week was the End of the World, the roller-zombie-pocalypse and it was happening in Milton Keynes. My first time shooting a rollerderby bout and hopefully the first of many!

Thanks to Oxford Roller Derby for sorting out my access; to Milton Keynes Concrete Cows for putting on an amazing event and to the Vendetta Vixens and Rebellion Rollerderby for putting on a great first game. If you’ve never seen Roller Derby before, its a fast-paced cross between rugby and speed-skating in fishnets. The teams in this event are celebrating the Mayan year of doom in style with an End of the World Series (I only just saw what they did there…) and my home team of Oxford are next skating in Swansea on 3rd of March in This is Derby, get tickets…go see!

Technical Info: Zeiss Ikon and Leica M4, loaded with Portra 400 and Tri-X both pushed a stop but processed as normal.

OMEDS Winter Hafla 2011

kal — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 17:06:23 +0000

I was very pleased to be one of the photographers at the Winter Hafla – along with my wife, Agata and our friend James. Between the three of us we managed to pull together a nice diverse collection of images. These are a few of my own personal favourites.

Oxford Santa Run 2011

kal — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 17:42:49 +0000

The Oxford Santa Run is held each year in support of Helen & Douglas House, a local children’s hospice. Literally thousands of Santas took part this year, along with a smattering of elves, helpers and even a reindeer or two.