Boulder State Titles ‘24 FUN!
(or, a sport photographers experience capturing a unique sporting event)
It's taken me a while to write about this experience. Not for any negative reasons, mind you. I simply haven't had the head-space to reflect on this action-packed sporting event. After all, it's not every day you get the chance to capture state and national level sporting stars in a high quality competition.
Local crusher and future climbing superstar Christelle celebrating success.
The Boulder State Titles were held at Adrenaline Vault in Cockburn, Western Australia, in July 2024. Of course, when I took the chance to cover this event, I didn't realise it would be less than a week after I returned from a European holiday! The event ran over two huge days thanks to the tireless efforts of the Sport Climbing WA organisers and volunteers, proudly supported by fellow event sponsors Paddy Pallin, Little Sammys, Happy Biner, Project Climbing, Sport Climbing Australia, Act Belong Commit, and Brownes Dairy.
Sporting events aren’t all action - a quiet moment
What really stood out to me about this event was just how much FUN it was. Competitors, organisers, volunteers, staff, parents, and the crowd in general all had a really positive attitude and broad smiles all day, even when the going got hard. DJ Rock from PerthPartyDJ’s provided some absolute bangers to keep the crowd energised. The vibe and energy really did make the 12+ hour days behind the lens incredibly enjoyable.
DJ Rock banging out the tunes thanks to PerthPartyDJ’s.
Not to say that there weren't challenges. The standard sports photography issues of indoor low-lighting and moments of quick action were there, dealt with through a combination of camera settings, positioning and post-production editing. For the curious, I shoot indoor sporting events with wide aperture and a high ISO, which allows me to keep the shutter speed reasonably high. In other events I'd use a speedlight (flash) as well to really freeze the action, but when the difference between success and failure is often only millimeters, the athletes didn't need me blinding them to make things harder.
When precision matters, a sports photographer will capture without intruding!
The other issue was that there was only one of me. This meant I was racing up and down stairs to capture as much as possible of the five different categories all climbing simultaneously, then hot-swapping batteries, SD cards and lenses to capture crowd action in between, and also tagging images in camera to try and reduce the post-event processing volume. Thanks to plenty of coffee and the positive energy, I found I was able to keep on top of it all and capture every competitor. As an added bonus I definitely got in my exercise for the week!
Max showing extreme focus and locking in a very difficult move!
In the end, I shot well over 10,000 images over 2 days, and then spent the next month or so processing these down to 2000+ high quality photographs. To say I was relieved when the positive feedback and photo sales started coming in would be an understatement! This gallery is still live here and here, have a look if you haven't done so already.
Boulder Hub crew representing - Al and Fin chilling out between sessions
Thanks again to the Sport Climbing WA crew for having me along, here's hoping the next event is just as awesome.
And if your next event needs a sports photographer to capture the action, I'd love to have a chat. Just contact me here and let's discuss what we can achieve together.
Told you I had fun! - Me on the left posing with compere extraordinaire Tim!
