Rewind to ABS
January 20:
I headed to Nashville, the hippest town in Tennessee west of Chattanooga (and east of Memphis) to shoot the American Bouldering Series (ABS) Regionals for Climb Nashville. I was contracted by the gym to cover the comp and provide advertising material for future competitions.
This gym is HUGE. It has tons of space for kids camps and parties, but doesn’t skimp on radical bouldering structures and lead-able walls that provide training space for serious climbers. The elevated deck allows people to view the action without crowding the climbing floor, and doubles as a workout studio for evil-sounding classes like “Abs/Core” (its pretty fun actually). There is also a full weight room downstairs and a raw-looking Inner Strength “chains” facility in the back that looks like something Conan might have milled grain in before escaping and conquering an empire. I love this gym.
Oh I wish I had a pencil-thin moustache… The crew at Climb Nashville at the tail end of a ’stache pact.
Photographically, shooting indoor climbing shares some of the same challenges with shooting other indoor sports like basketball or volleyball. Lighting is tough, with big flourescents or incandescents directly overhead, and it might be hard to get clean shots without an exit sign or something in the background. For competition climbing, getting the right angles is tougher because the routes are usually kept secret until the comp starts. However I was also able to run some of the routes beforehand and work with the routesetters to see where the action was going to be, and set up appropriately. And its a climbing gym after all, so I could rig lights or myself pretty much anywhere to get close to the action.
I shot with Nikon D2X and D200 bodies at nearly every ISO and a variety of lenses up to 200mm. I lit with Profoto 7b and Nikon SB800 strobes with Quantum batteries, sometimes gelled for flourescent. Enjoy the pics
Routesetters Mike Moelter and Kyle Musgrove
Sunlight not included.
Limbs.
Horseplay during the youth comp.
Women’s champ Kate Reese getting her ABS workout.
Check out the comp results here.
