This is the second interview in my slowly evolving series of interviewing roller derby photographers or the people from roller derby we photograph.

Last year I put to you that one will never make money photographing roller derby. Yet if you have an interest in photography, especially photographing sports, roller photography will push you to enhance your skills. This alone is extremely valuable along with helping you open doors for you. Will take this a step further and talk to a photographer who is a prime, excuse the lens pun, example of how valuable photographing roller derby can be for you.

TJ Chase started photographing roller derby in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. His success reinforces how exceptional derby photography can be for you. Through a series of emails I asked him when he got started, how it came together, and I even snuck in a few advice questions. He graciously answered all.
DS: When did you start photographing? What did you start photographing?
TJ: My photography journey started as kinda a fluke. Back in 2010 I worked in an electronics store, and sales contests were a regular part of how we were compensated, which was always a gift card to the store. I won a $500 gift card, and after many years working there I didn’t really have anything I wanted, so I used the gift card to buy a Canon t1i camera, because it was on sale and I figured I could sell it for cash if I didn’t end up using it. At that point, I didn’t really have a taste for photography, or know anyone who was a photographer, but I remember really liking taking pictures and then seeing them pop up on the back of the camera. It was fun.
I started by taking pictures of really random stuff, and watching YouTube videos on how to use the camera. I remember getting really into HDR when I first started, really bad and overdone HDR, but I loved how different it looked. I would take pictures of bus stops, my car, and sunsets, pretty much anything that caught my eye, and then throw it into a pirated version of photoshop that my cousin downloaded for me and messing around with it. Because I was learning photography on the fly, It was very much about experimentation, still kinda is to be honest. Then in 2011, my wife was pregnant with my firstborn, and I started photographing people for the first time, which got me interested in portrait photography, and off camera flash (thanks to strobist.com), which eventually led me to taking pictures of friends for $20 a session. That’s a hilarious price looking back, but at the time I just wanted to cover the price of the monthly studio rental co-op I was a part of.

DS: I always wonder what it would take to do something for someone or give them something that it causes them to take up a new profession, want to play a musical instrument, new hobby, etc, etc. In that vain what would you tell a league that was trying to attract photographers to their league? I see you describe how you got to derby in the next question.
TJ: I think leagues need to find a way to tickle the curiosity of shooters, and the flexibility and unlimited creativity is what did it for me. That first bout I shot, I was welcomed to the game with open arms by the other shooters, that instantly made me feel accepted and welcome. Also at that first game, I was given the advice of where I could and could not shoot for safety reasons, but there wasn’t very many of those spots. The thing that helped me fall in love with the sport is right from day 1 it felt like this was a place I could let my intuition and creativity run wild, and that’s what hooked me. If I am a league and trying to attract shooters, these are a few things I would do right away.
Have an active campaign seeking out new shooters. All skaters, refs, fans, should be asking anyone they know that’s even moderately into photography if they’d like to come try shooting a bout. Put together a pdf or link on a website which shows a collection of your current shooters best and most creative images, as a taste of the kinds of photos that they can get, and the freedom they’d have (within reason of course).
Make sure it’s known amongst all current shooters, skaters, officials, that we will have a new photographer coming out and that they need to feel welcomed. In my experience, Derby is mostly a place of community, and acceptance, and shared love, but occasionally it can also be a place of power trips. If there are people in the league who’s first reaction is to tell those who are new to the game that they need to stay out of the way and keep in a box, those people need to be talked to before. That initial feeling of being welcomed is critical, and it there needs to be an active campaign to ensure it’s felt for new shooters. Maybe a start a tradition of current shooters showing the ropes to the new shooters. We did that for years in our league, and to this day I still do if there’s someone new shooting the bout.
Make sure there is a mechanism where new shooters albums get highlighted, or shared from the league page, or make sure skaters go through that album and tag the skaters on their team. It will mean a lot to the new photographer to get that feeling of appreciation, and will also help them get exposure from the effort.
Quick story: After I had a few bouts under my belt, I messaged terminal city and asked if I could get a photo pass to shoot one of their upcoming bouts. They gave me one, and after I posted to album to my 37 followers on Facebook, I noticed that one of their star jammers (#52, Evada Peron) had gone through and tagged skaters in all of my photos. Engagement went up big time because of that, but more impotantly I started to see comments and people were sharing them which really fuelled me. I’m sure it took her all of 5 minutes to tag the images, but it meant so much to me that people were actually going to see the photos, because of her effort. I messaged that skater, and thanked her. We got to chatting, and became good friends. She was basically my muse, and all throughout her derby career all of the best photos of her were mine, and all of my best derby photos were of her. When she retired, I made her a framed collage of all my best images of her, with her number overlayed on top. A beautiful friendship and partnership, an artist and the muse, all started with a Facebook message and a tagged post. I’ve attached that photo.


TJ Chase with Evada Peron #52
DS:How were you introduced to roller derby? Did you start photographing it from the get you or did you think about for a bit?
TJ: A couple years in, I was starting to get better at lighting, and editing, and was spending my weekends taking photos of my friends and family at the studio. During one session, I was photographing my Friend Rianna, and her friend, and they both brought roller skates to the session. I asked what the deal with the skates was, and this is when I first heard about roller derby. Her and her friend were just getting started, and wanted some photos in their skates to post online. We had our session, got some cool photos, and when I posted them up on Facebook there were some positive comments from the skaters in their new team. One of the comments was “you should come out and take pictures of our bout, we have one next weekend.”
I was shooting anything and everything at that time, so I nervously went to the bout with a cheap canon speed light and some pocket wizard radio triggers. I had no idea how to light a hockey rink, so there was a lot of trial and error, as well as a bunch of ambient shots and shutter drag images. Looking back, the thing I loved most about shooting derby right from the get go is the freedom it gave me to experiment and play around. I had no idea what to expect, and no expectations on me for deliverable images. I just got to play, and try things, and even now that’s my favourite part of shooting derby. After that, I shot sooooo much derby.
DS: Do you do video too?
TJ: No, just photos for me. I’ve dabbled in making some fun videos of my kids, but I don’t get the same enjoyment out of video as I do in making photographs. There’s something about a photograph that feels pure to me. I don’t feel that same way about video, and my love of photography comes from the process of making photographs, and not necessarily the results that come from them.

DS: This is a more a business question about photography, the business model before social media was to sell photos through things like portrait sessions or licensing photos. Now it seems as if it is content creation and/or making videos of you taking photos are the strongest revenue streams. Good or bad thing?
A: this is a topic I think we could have many hours of discussion on, but my short answer is I think it can be both, depending on what the primary goal is for your photography. If your primary goal is to build a business, then I think having as many brand building/revenue streams as possible, such as video, is important. If you get good at it, producing video content for clients is a good service to offer, as online presence is all about capturing attention and holding onto it as long as possible. This is something that video is currently more effective at than still images are, at least online. Using video as a brand building mechanism is also highly effective, but if not done right it can be at the cost of the quality of your photography. I personally enjoy watching videos of photographers I admire, especially when they are giving insights into their process, are discussing their opinions on a topic I care about, or showing a BTS of their shoots. If it’s done right, It can be very inspiring and can help you build an audience, which can lead to more business. However, I feel there is no value in making videos just for the sake of making videos. To appease the algorithm controlled content machine. That is a recipe for burnout, and can also be the death of your enjoyment of creativity.
My goal for photography is not monetary tho, so I’m not going to pretend to be an expert on the business side of things. The business side of it tends to find its way to me, because I focus so intently on my own personal enjoyment in it. I believe that there is nothing more powerful than a still image, and the act of being present in a moment to capture it is a big part of what I enjoy most about photography.

DS: What are the hardest things to manage photographing roller derby? Eg. Mixed ambient lighting? Low light? Erratic movements?
In terms of difficulty to photograph how would you compare derby to hockey? How are they same and/or different?
TJ: All of the above! Hockey and Roller Derby have a lot of similarities in their challenges, more than any of the other sports I’ve shot, but also some key differences. I’m not sure the best way to frame this answer, but I’ll start with a list of the challenges I think they have in common, and then go from there.
Poor Lighting: Unless you plan on bringing flash, poor lighting is definitely at the top of the list, for both hockey and roller derby. They are both often played in hockey rinks, or curling rinks, or barns, or dark caves with bats in the ceiling. Lighting is a major challenge for both, unless you are lucky enough to shoot in big professional arenas (which also comes with their own challenges). But, with cameras being as good as they are at shooting high ISO, and editing software having amazing de-noise capabilities, this is less of a problem now than it was when I first started shooting derby. But the gift of challenges like this is that it forces you to problem solve creatively, which will make you a better shooter in all other areas of photography. Whether it be finding the pockets of light, or the good angles, or think creatively with your framing, or changing your position entirely and see what interesting images can be made from the centre, or behind the jam line, or of the crowd, or through that doorway, or with camera motion, having to problem solve the lighting will always lead you to getting the best images.
Fast moving subjects that move erratically: This is challenging, but also the type of thing that really makes you into a sports photographer. Tracking the action of a fast-moving sport is a learned skill, that requires much repetition and constant tinkering to see what works and what doesn’t. Autofocus systems are great now, but you still need to know where to be pointing the camera to capture what’s about to happen, while also being able to quickly pivot to catch something that happens unexpectedly (which happens all the time in both sports). Eventually you get an intuitive sense for where you need to be looking and when, but first step is to get to know the sport well so you can properly predict it.
Those are the main challenges that they both share, Mixed ambient light is also an issue if you’re shooting ambient, but that’s something the can be corrected for in post production, but it definitely adds editing time. I’ll address this more in the editing questions below.
Hockey adds the challenge of usually having to shoot through arena glass, which is usually slightly tinted, and dirty. Unless you’re shooting the pro’s, you have to fight to find pockets of clean plexiglass, and then press your lens right up to it to minimize glare. Shooting in the NHL doesn’t have this issue, we have a hole cut in the glass that we can shoot through, but this creates another problem which it limits the angle we can shoot at unless we want a puck to permanently dent our 70-200 outer ring (which I have lol) This is an area that makes Derby so enjoyable to shoot, the flexibility of position and shooting angle. With hockey, you are usually limited.

DS: What helped you the most from photographing derby that helped you photograph other sports?
TJ: I kinda mentioned some of this above, but the main one is it teaches you how to problem solve photographically, and trains your eye and intuition to know where to point your camera as well as when. It tunes your photographic senses better than anything else I’ve ever photographed. Also, in derby you aren’t just shooting action, you’re also shooting moment of pause, and portraits, and event style photography, and allows you to think abstract, and play around with composition.
Also, derby teaches you how to predict and frame photos using body positions. What I mean by that is it trains your eye to see the shapes that skaters bodies’ make while they are skating/hitting/scoring, and over time you can see these shapes happening before they do, which increases your hit rate and the overall interest in your photos. You start to see the frames within the action, which I’ve always enjoying playing with creatively. I have many photos from both hockey and derby that I can illustrate this with, I’ve attached some as examples, but there’s so many more. It’s my favourite part of shooting/editing is seeking these frames and cropping tight on them.

DS: When you have met photographers who just started photographing derby what are their biggest apprehensions? Are they valid? What do they overlook the most?
TJ: The first things is always, “What the heck is happening, I don’t understand this sport”. That can be a bit daunting for them, and we’ve all been there. Once you get to know the sport, that goes away and you enjoy shooting, but it can be pretty confusing at first. If I ever shoot with a new shooter to the sport, I always give them the rundown of how the strategy works, usually the football analogy where both teams are playing offence and defence simultaneously, and the jammer is the ball for both teams. Then it usually clicks.
DS Comment: After ten years of photographing I still dread anyone asking what is going on. I think I have most of it figured it and then I hear some call or see some play and I am like “What?!”. Lol.
DS: Is it a good thing to just focus on one sport or is there something to be gained by trying other sports?
TJ: I am a big believer in shooting as many different things as possible, including sports. Shooting Derby has made me a better hockey photographer, shooting hockey has made me a better football photographer, and so on. I started shooting derby before I shot any other sport, and I fully credit derby with making me into the photographer I am today. I’ve shot the NHL for many years, CFL, MLS, and I also regularly shoot local youth hockey in terrible lit arenas. Derby has also made me a better portrait photographer, event photographer, and given me the skills to figure out solutions for any photography related situation that I find myself in. When you play sports, it’s a common practice that you train in different sports during “off” seasons, as it elevates your level of athleticism in all the sports. This is also how I view sports photography.

DS: How important is it to understand the culture, in terms of the relationship between the players and other photographers with you, of the sport for your photography?
TJ: You can still get good photos without that understanding, but it’s so much better when you do. The supportive community around roller derby is beautiful, and if you can become a part of it I would highly recommend it. Your understanding of the deeper context of interactions will make for better photos, and you’ll really start to enjoy coming to the bouts and seeing people. I’ve been shooting derby for over 10 years, and I still feel the love when I get to the rink. Also building that community with other derby photographers is a special thing as well. I have hundreds of images I’ve taken over the years of my fellow derby photographers, it’s a great bond to share with another human being.
DS: Are derby photographers the most welcoming to other photographers compared to other sport photographers?
TJ: Haha yes. Derby is the only sport I’ve experienced this bond with fellow shooter. When I first started shooting the Canucks, there would regularly be altercations with a certain photographer who felt challenged by me being there. In most other sports, you are competitors with other photographers, all fighting to get “the shot”. It can sometimes get hostile. Not always, but derby doesn’t usually have that issue.

DS: Way too funny. The only other sport I have photographed is cycling. One year I got to photograph the world cycling championships in Hamilton, Ontario. The photo pool was over 50 photographers. The scrums were insane. I took so many elbows from Europeans.
I can imagine that’s what it would feel like to be in the pack of skaters.
Follow up question. Average one-track derby venue. How many photographers is too many?
TJ: I’ve never ever reached a point where I thought that there were too many shooters. I remember shooting a bout inside a school gymnasium, which was TIGHT. And we had 6 of use moving around and barely felt it. I think maybe if you get to the point where there’s too many shooters, you’d know. There’s so many positions to shoot on a derby track, unlike hockey where you have 4 or 5 positions and everyone fights to get their time in them. Some of my favourite memories of Big O and other tourneys are when we had 5 or 6 of us shooters all cuddled up around the same corner. I have a photo of a skater crashing into a group of 4 shooters, big smiles on everyone’s faces afterwards. A great laugh had by all.
I feel it’s the more the merrier, so long as everyone is respectful and doesn’t hog any one spot.

DS: Editing your photos. Let us split that in two. Culling and image correction. There is really no course that teaches you how to do the former but today lots of videos for the latter. What skills are you relying on to do this? Which is harder to learn? Culling or image correction?
TJ: Culling and editing are what elevate your photography more than any piece of gear ever will be. This is where you get to choose what to show to the world, and how. Not every photo is an award winner, and there will always a percentage of photos from your set that are obviously the keepers, and there will always be a percentage that are obviously heading to the cutting room floor. The real skill comes in setting your personal bar for the rest of the images in the middle. Shooting is 50% of the image, and I always shoot with the intent of not fixing or correcting the image in post, but adding my special sauce which makes it a TJ Chase Photography Image. I shoot with the edit in mind, and part of that is my lighting and choices the moment I click the shutter, but I treat culling/editing like adding the final touches on the recipe.
Culling:
I always do two initial passes through my images. The first pass is to flag images that I feel are interesting, and give them a label of 1 star, always starting at the end of the album and working my way through backwards. I don’t need to be 100% sure that the photo will make the final album, but there needs to be something about it that makes me think, “I like something about that”, even if I don’t know what it is yet. This first past is entirely reliant on my personal taste, I don’t consider what anyone else would like into the equation at this point, this is where I set the level of what I think is an interesting image, without worrying about album count or duplicate images. The second pass is where I start to refine the list and decide which ones will be edited, and choose which ones are best, they get a 2 star rating.
Editing: Once I have the second pass done, I start at the beginning of the album and edit one photo at a time going forward through the bout. I evaluate each photo individually, and edit based on what I feel works best for the photo. Some photos lend themselves well to a dramatic black and white edit, and some to a crisp color edit with tight framing. I have presets that are dialled in for the venues I shoot at, but I treat every photo as its own creative thing. I fine tune the shadows, contrast, curves, and blacks/whites to my tastes in Lightroom, and overall I tend not to spend more than 1-2 minutes per photo. I don’t usually use Photoshop for the edit, unless I need it to do some heavy lifting on something that needs to be fixed. As I’m moving forward through the edit, I will make decisions on whether or not an image stays or goes a third time. Sometimes I’ll start editing an image, decide that I’ve spent too much time trying to make it look the way I want, and if I’m not happy with it after a few minutes I kick it back down to 1 star. As a general rule, If I ever have to spend more than a few minutes playing with a photo, it’s probably not good enough and it’s time to move on. There are some leagues that pay me to come shoot their bouts, specifically to get marketing materials, and when I work those types of bouts I will be a little more flexible on what I let through when it comes to the event story type shots. Photos of the sign outside, skaters arriving to the venue, more shots of the volunteers, refs, etc. Stuff I know will help the league and attract more volunteers. But I’ll usually send that to them in a separate folder, and won’t always post it online.

DS: Ambient versus flash. I am evenly split on this. Each half starts with 15 minutes flash, the remainder of the half ambient. The best thing about flash and its limitations is that it cuts down on how many photos you have to sort through. The best thing about ambient you have much more freedom.
TJ: I would say I’m usually around 75% flash, and 25% ambient, but I don’t do that intentionally, it’s more of an intuitive thing. On my camera, I have my Manual mode set up for my flash areas of the venue (usually 3.5, 1/200, Iso 100-400), and then I set my custom modes for when I switch to ambient. In a bout, I am constantly changing from flash to ambient on the fly, just by flipping the dial and taking off my flash trigger.

For the Flash area of the track, I set up three lights that will light 2/3rd of the track, in a configuration that acts as a main light, fill light, and kicker light. Depending on my camera position and direction I aim it, these lights will switch their roles. If I am shooting towards the jamline from turn 1, the light to my right will be my main, and the back left light will be kicker. If I’ve shooting from turn 3 aiming back into turn 2, then the first light becomes the kicker, and the back light becomes the main. Sometimes I will adjust the power levels or iso on the fly so I can get certain looks, but its an awesome lighting set up because it allows me to roam and play with the light by changing my camera position. This takes some time to get used to, but it gives you more freedom than you think, as long as you get good at understanding how the light will affect each area of the track. I don’t light to try and be even, I light in the same way that you’d like a portrait. That’s the secret to my flash images.
For my ambient shots, I use the C1,C2,C3 custom dials at the top of my camera, and dial them in to various types of ambient. C1 – Fast Action Ambient (2.8, 1/1000 iso 3200-8000), C2 is regular ambient (2.8, 1/250, Iso 1600-3200), and C3 is long exposure (varies depending on what effect I’m going for, but usually around 1/20). This way, If I am shooting flash, and then notice that something is happening that would look better as an ambient shot, or if it’s in an area that I know the flash will be too light/dark/wrong, then I pop the trigger off my hotshoe, switch the dial, and then shoot it ambient with all the settings already dialled in. This allows me to stay present in the moment much more, which always leads to better results and a more enjoyable time shooting.

DS: Are there any habits that are good that can help you edit while you shoot? I do not mean anything like deleting files during the game but maybe like a list of shots you want.
TJ: I don’t delete while I shoot, and I also don’t really plan any specific shots with sports. I tend to just follow my eye, and have learned how to trust my photo instincts and tastes. Takes time to get to that point tho, I used to overshoot bouts like crazy, but with time and practice you learn what works and what doesn’t for you. One thing I do is when I take a photo that I know is going to be a good one, I will add a 1 or 2 star rating to it at the end of the jam, and when I cull my images later I will usually edit those 1 star ones right away and post them as a teaser album. I like getting a small album of images out in the day or two after the bout, as it’s something that satisfies a creative itch for me personally. I also tend to find that skater engagement is more effective immediately after that bout, but that’s not why I do it. It’s a happy byproduct tho. I also find that posting that teaser album soon after helps to prevent the “are the photos done yet?” 15-20 good images posted quickly will buy you a couple weeks to get through the rest without feeling pressured.

One of TJ’s earliest photos of derby.
DS: While on the topic of flash I purposely did not ask about flash photography cause number one, you give great advice on it but it is probably a discussion all of its own.
I spent many years working in photo labs where I got to see how photographers of all calibers culled their images. I divided them into two groups. The technical and the emotional cullers. The former would check for focus and positioning the latter it was just how the image made them feel. You touch on both in your answer.
TJ: Yeah I think figuring out our culling/editing process is very important. It took me years to figure out why I do it this way, cause it can be time consuming culling with multiple passes, but for the most part it’s what works best for me. Culling NHL hockey for Upper Deck was a little different because it was a volume photo type gig and needed to be organized by player, so I created a different system for that, but not one that’s helpful for derby shooters. It was less fun, and sometimes painful lol.

DS: Unless you are under a deadline, is it important to take breaks while editing? Like even walking away from it for a day or two.
TJ: Short answer is yes. Rushing through the culling/edit is a surefire way to burnout or lose the love for it. My teaser album I mentioned above is the first thing I do when I get the images into Lightroom. I love going straight to editing images with the star rating, cause it gives me the satisfaction of completion, without all the culling/editing work that usually goes before. It’ll usually take me 30-40 minutes to hammer out 15-20 images for a teaser album, and then I take 1-2 weeks to finish the rest.

DS: Any other habits that are good for editing?
TJ: Editing style is subjective, but here’s a few things that work for me.
Try to get yourself into a zone if you can. Sometimes I will cull/edit while on the couch watching TV, and that is enjoyable too, but I find I really dial in when I am in front of my proper monitor, with my music going, a drink in hand, and I just focus on it.
If you are working on a photo for more than a few minutes, and it’s just not working, or you’re not happy with it, take a break from it and move on. Maybe come back to it later with fresh eyes, but in my experience if it isn’t good in the first 5 minutes, it’s likely not going to be after an hour.
Cropping vs No Cropping. A discussion as old as photography. My opinion, sports is about capturing the moment as best you can, when you can. And I will almost always adjust the crop in my photos to tell the story better, or to make the image more visually appealing. I always try to get it right in camera, but I have no issues cropping in post. I have a few local shooters who ask me for my opinion on their photos, and more often than not my questions for them are about why there is so much dead space along the edges of their frame. Always pay attention to framing, and where your attention goes to in an image. If it’s not going to where you want it to, then there’s usually something wrong with the crop of it. Not always, but more often than not.
PLAY AROUND WITH THE EDIT. My style of edit will change depending on what I feel about the image and how I think it should be edited. After many years of shooting you get a sense for what works and develop presets, but don’t just copy/paste settings onto your images and call it a day. If you learn to enjoy the process of editing and tinkering around with your photos, it will come through in the images.
DS: Thank you TJ for answering all the questions and taking the time to do it.
I am expecting someone to say. “Ya. We make the effort to get them to photograph derby and once they get really good they will disappear!” Well I kinda of thought that too when I was thinking on who to interview.
Then I saw a GVRD post about their event “Christmas in July” (2024) game. TJ is still photographing roller derby. Enough said.

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More info.
Looking for some info about how derby is played. This short video covers the basics. It is dated.
Want to see if there is a league near you. I have links for mostly Southern Ontario teams here. This link is more comprehensive but not complete. You can also Google your city or leave a comment below. Comments are moderated so they will not appear immediately.
Edits: Jan 24, 2025 – arttribution correction. Context & formatting correction. Flash diagram added.
All photos in this post copyright © TJ Chase 2012-2025. Used with permission.
Originally posted by Darren Stehr January 23, 2025. No AI used. No conflict. No sponsor.