Last January (2025) I posted an interview with TJ Chase. He kindly shared his lighting set up which I am going to call the ‘Chase 3’. Been using his approach since then and I am back to talk about results.
You can read all the deets here.
Before I go any farther you do not need flash to photograph derby. It is however nice to have if the venue allows you to use it. I typically shoot the first fifteen minutes of every period with flash and the last half ambient. One major benefit of using flash it forces you to be decisive as you only have one chance at getting the image unlike ambient where you can quickly shoot a series of images. I figured out how to get my strobes to fire 9FPS but not really a fan favourite and highly recommened you stay away from that.
My old approach to using strobes was for the most part just shoot from the hip. Forgive the pun. Each venue I would try something a bit different. Sometimes I had good success. Though rarely was repeateable. One year in Kingston I got this beautiful ring light effect but have never been able to repeat even when I went back to Kingston.
The ‘Chase 3’ is repeatable, flexible, and produces great results. TJ gave us a diagram and instructions. You can tailor the set up to get a light so soft that you almost cannot tell flash is being used all the way up to a, searching for the right word(s), a hot low-key image with some rim lighting? TJ does the latter super well. Preference for me is shaping the subject.
Here is a soft set up. Bounced off the ceiling.
Something more pronounced.
One thing you will have to figure out on your own is flash placement apart from what TJ has told us. No one venue is the same as the other. Unless you are into putting your light stands in an area where they can easily be knocked over by passer-bys the quality of light changes by the distance to subject.
So here is one of my screw ups. Had this venue figured out. I was lazy. Instead of placing the light, corner one, behind the glass as I usually did I mounted it on the glass. This resulted in those light sabres in the background, something that does not happen if strobe is behind the glass at this particular venue.
These two above are bounced off the ceiling but with some gentle contrast.
The above is also bounced off the ceiling but with more contrast. You can see the strobe in the background.
Here the flexibility comes through. This is shot at corner two after the player was recycled almost at the edge of minimum focus for my 70-200/2.8. You end up with a lot more usuable area to photograph with the Chase 3.
Back to placement. It matters. I have not got fully figured out yet. Probably would have helped myself if I had taken notes but taking notes is boring.
So here is where I admit that I saw TJ’s description of his set up, posted to a private derby photographers’ FB page, a few years ago. I tried but assumed since it appeared he favoured shooting from corner one and three that if I changed put the strobe he has set in corner four to corner three I would be all set. (Sorry, grammer sucks in the last sentence) No. While I sometimes made it work but certainly not consistently. I favour shooting from corner two. Chase 3 as TJ has described works well from corner two. Actually it works from all four corners with some output adjustment.
Side note – I have a theory. Nikon shooters prefer corner one and Canon folk corner two. No stats to back that up. Just an impression left on me when we used to get four to six photographers to a game.
The above two images were not shot from corner two. I have also dragged the shutter on purpose. The drawback of flash it can make photos look frozen. That might sound a bit off seeing the whole point is to “freeze” things with flash.
In conclusion I will repeat if you are looking for something that is predictable and repeatable along with being easy to set up Chase 3 is the way to go. You will have to fine tune it to your preferences.
Thank you again to TJ for providing the basics.
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Tech info in case you are wondering. My set up has corners one and two with Godox 600 strobes and corner three is a Godox 1200. When possible I try to set them at 1/8th or less power. Fired manually.
If you have questions please send them and I will add them to the post with an answer if I know it. (Sorry. Allowing commenting on posts draws all sorts of scams) If forever whatever reason you want to write about the evils of flash please feel free to send me your position and I will post it in whole. Unedited unless you potty mouth words.
Send your stuff to darren (at) derbyphotos.ca preferably in the body of the email.
Originally written January 2nd, 2026. No AI used. No sponsors.
