WPPD - Fast glass...small hole

Shooting through the eye of a needle - if only my hole was that big.

 

 

Rollergirls in action courtesy of Run Roller Run skating around Ponds Forge.

8 minute exposure on Kodak Portra 400NC (I opened the hole).

 

 

In Roller Derby photography circles, people are always on about shooting with fast glass. Lenses with a wide maximum aperture. The 70-200mm f2.8 being a main stay for many photographers. Its a lens I've used, but ultimately rejected due it its weight and I have found that in most sports halls its still just a little bit slow.

 

 

I made an itinerary earlier in the year of bouts to cover, noting them in my diary. I forgot that WPPD took place on the last Sunday in April. WPPD, for those that are not in the know this is Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day. A day when idiots dig out their little wooden boxes, smiley cams, wheelie bins and other assorted junk in which they have inserted a very small hole and go forth in to the great outdoors to take blurry photographs.

 

 

The last weekend in April also plays host to Anarchy III. An extravaganza of fast paced Roller Derby action featuring teams from around the world.

 

 

Fast-paced action... small hole.... this just isn't going to work. Or is it? I like a challenge. f138... or at a push I can use a zone plate at f47.5, but you just loose a bit of sharpness. Always a compromise.

 

 

The general rule is that you need to shoot at least 1/500th of a second to freeze the action. I’m looking at 20 minutes to an hour. If everyone moved really slowly, I mean really slowly, I could get something significantly less blurred. The only other option left open to me is to hijack the Large Hadron Collider and devise some sort of experiment to distort space and time. If I remember my GCSE Physics correctly, it shouldn’t be that hard.

 

 

So to recap. Lets throw out everything I’ve learned about shooting sports. Pack a variety of small wooden boxes, baked been tins and toilet rolls, enough gaffer tape to restrain a mildly enraged (not engaged) gorilla and an assortment of out of date film and I’m ready to go.

 

 

This could be my greatest triumph. Or another set of blurry images, that if you squint, just a little bit and use your imagination, you can just make out something, but I’m not sure what.