And so it begins…

hello! if you made it this deep into my website I will have to applaud you. I’m not expecting anyone to read any of this and honestly, I am ok with that. This is more for journaling my time as a wrestling photographer. I will have to apologize in advance though. I am not the greatest writer, I am actually terrible and I know no matter how much I proofread this (probably 20 times) something will either be spelled wrong or not make sense grammatically. So sorry!

I sit here approaching ( or already approaching) my one year with the creation of the SlingBlade photo. My very first event was at AAW at their Legacy show (Feb 4th). I have 20 shows that I have photographed since then. I will say it’s been an interesting year. Researching different shows across Chicago for me to attend, meeting so many different people, seeing so many different wrestlers, watching my own friend wrestle, seeing sooo many amazing matches, and figuring out a workflow (not going as well, as I went a few months before posting photos from an event…oops) and lastly getting a bit star struck.

I’ve watched wrestling pretty much all my life, wrestlers were always on tv or tiny insects from my bleacher seats at live shows. Going to indy shows (for the first time mind you) and being so close to talent without much of a barrier was still a bit surreal to me. My only experience has been behind fences, barricades, and blockades of people squeezing themselves to get closer to their favorite talent to ask for an autograph. No this was different for me. This seemed more causal? It’s not every day you can casually walk past Max Caster and ask him to scissor your fingers and be on your merry way. This will always be something I’ll never get used to.

So how did I get here? well, it’s pretty simple, I love wrestling and was already a photographer. I just decided to put two and two together. I actually was supposed to start this adventure almost 3 years ago. I needed something to keep myself busy when I wasn’t photographing weddings. I posted on Reddit for advice from other wrestling photographers, I got inspiration from people like kimberlass and brainbuster. I had researched shows to see the following month and had a plan set. However, this plan was during March 2020. You can guess what happened. It took me until the beginning of 2022 to try again. I am glad I did.

When I attended my first show, I actually didn’t know how to photograph it. The approach I took was to walk around like I was at a wedding reception or corporate event documenting what was playing out in the ring because that’s what I knew. I saw other photographers like me photographing from afar while they talked to their friends that came with them. I was by myself and I was walking all over the venue trying to get decent shots of the really really dark venue. I’ve photographed in dark venues before but I had the advantage of an on-camera flash. Something I couldn’t really use at wrestling events for fear I would be distracting everyone. Not to mention the light wouldn’t have been that much help. The black walls and tall ceilings would have eaten up all the light produced. So my photos were pretty dark and I did my best to edit them so they would look halfway decent.

I learned to be a photographer through weddings (technical-wise). With wrestling, I needed to start from scratch. I used settings I never used before (the studio I work for has particular settings we use. A set it and forget to help focus on stories and being present with couples) I was coming into this at a disadvantage. I have to unlearn 4 years of repetition when I shoot wrestling. Managing settings and researching different lenses that might work best in dark venues. It is still all a process for me but I know it’s getting better. At every event, I conquer a new challenge and I think it’s better that way. This is something I don’t want to be on autopilot. I want to keep learning and keep getting better.

Thanks for getting this far. until next time…..space cowboy.

*Nisa*