GaryPaulson.net

Meet Info
- Date: January 17, 2012
- Score: Kamiakin Braves: 25 -vs- Kennewick Lions: 33 @ Kamiakin
- Story: Tri-City Herald

Photos at Smugmug
- Kamiakin vs Kennewick: Wrestling – Battle of the Bone – Kamiakin vs Kennewick
- Kamiakin vs Southridge: Coming Soon! Wrestling – Battle of the Bone – Kamiakin vs Southridge
- Mat Rattlers & Misc.: Coming Soon! Mat Rattlers Miscellaneous Photos

After shooting a basketball game, I thought I should try photographing wrestling. Wrestling appears to be much harder to photograph. In Cross Country & Track, the athletes are always predictable. They will be coming from a specific direction. Every runner, every time. In Basketball, the athletes are heading towards one basket or the other. Yes you will have their backs to you at times, but the defenders will most likely be facing you.

In Wrestling, the athletes rotate around the mat, facing this way and that. Even when they are pointed your direction, the athletes’ faces may be turned away or buried in the other player’s armpit. The photographer is also fighting the same low light situation you have for basketball and other indoor sports with the added difficulty that the wrestler usually has his face angled towards the dark mat, meaning their face is always in a shadow. In basketball the players are looking out towards either the basket or other players, a much better lighting situation in comparison.

Still, it was fun to shoot, fun to remember high school, fun to see and hear the parents cheering on their wrestlers.