The sports my daughter has played has had a big effect on my photographic journey. When she was a lot younger it was shooting a netball game that showed a good digital SLR could be and resulted in us purchasing her first one.

She went on to artistic rollerskating which pushed my gear and my own understanding of how to use the camera even more.

She eventually gave up the rollerskating when she went to university in 2021 she got interested in rubble Derby. In theory this is a low contact sport played mainly by women who all take on different personas for the games.

Unlike many of the others Samantha could skate very well so she ended up in the position of Jammer (denoted by the star on the helmet) who is person who once they have made it past the other skaters (called blockers) score points.

I had photographed Roller Derby on two previous occassion and found that it was even more challenging to shoot that roller skating. So when Samantha invited me to of their training sessions. I decided to give it another go as I could try out different settings without the pressure of delivering any images.

All of these images were shot with my Panasonic G9 using a 100-300mm lens. This is a full frame equivalent of 200-600mm. I had a setting of f4 and played with shutter speeds of 1/125 and 1/200s to freeze the action with ISO provisions the boost (2500 at the lower end and 4000 at the upper).

Focusing what the main challenge and ultimately you end up taking a lot of images and rejecting them.

Sport is a great way for anyone to learn how to use their camera on the fly and particularly the limitations that the gear will give you. You make lots of mistakes but in the process you learn heaps.