Behind the lens at a busy weekend of figure skating
The first weekend of spring in Australia tends to land on a packed competition calendar, and this year was no exception. From the early-morning novice groups at Macquarie Ice Rink in Sydney to the evening showcase events at the O'Brien Icehouse in Melbourne, our team moved between four venues in two cities over seventy-two hours. We came home with more than fourteen thousand images, three full memory cards to reformat, and a refreshed sense of what it takes to keep up with the energy of a youth figure skating circuit.
Figure skating photography is a craft that rewards preparation as much as instinct. Every event asks a different question of the camera, and every session on the ice runs on its own clock. This is a look at how we approached a recent busy weekend of figure skating events, from the pre-dawn gear checks to the final gallery uploads for families around the country.
How the schedule came together
The weekend started forming weeks in advance. Once a competition confirms its event schedule, we map each skater's program against the run-of-show and build a shot list per rink. In Australia, a typical state-level weekend can include anything from ten-minute beginner routines to four-minute senior freeskate programs, and the difference in choreography between a Sydney-based club skater and one from the Brisbane Ice Arena can shape which lenses we bring to which rink.
State borders do not stop the calendar. A skater based in Adelaide might travel to Melbourne for a sanctioned event, and we often find ourselves working the same athlete twice in a single season. To stay organised, the team shares a shared Notion board with program start times, music cues, and notes on the lighting rig at each venue. When the Australian Figure Skating Championships approach, that board grows into a small spreadsheet of its own.
While figure skating is the focus of this particular weekend, our calendar also includes yearbook shoots for school sports. We have put together a guide to photographing volleyball matches for the yearbook for staff at schools that book us across multiple codes, and the same pre-event routine applies to those days as it does on the ice.
Preparing before we ever leave the studio
Friday afternoon is for packing. Two camera bodies, four lenses covering 24mm through 400mm, eight batteries, and a stack of formatted cards go into a pelican case that has seen more car boots than studio shelves. The cold air inside an ice rink can drop sensor temperatures fast, so we acclimatise gear in the car before heading inside and we always carry a microfiber cloth in a jacket pocket for the inevitable fog the moment we step through the doors.
We also use the day before to confirm access passes, coach wristbands, and any working-with-children paperwork required by the host venue. Each Australian state runs its own check, and rinks in New South Wales and Victoria have asked for current clearances before we can shoot from the boards. None of that is glamorous, but it is the difference between a smooth morning and a frustrating one.
The technical side of capturing skaters on the move
A figure skater covers the equivalent of a small athletics track during a four-minute program, and the camera has to keep up. We shoot most of our coverage in burst mode at the highest usable frame rate, with shutter speeds held at 1/1000 or faster to freeze the rotation of a triple lutz or the blur of a layback Ina Bauer. Auto-focus tracking is set to the skater's hip rather than the face, because the face is often turned away from the lens during jumps.
The lighting at a community rink is rarely flattering. A single overhead bank of fluorescent tubes turns the ice yellow, and a low ceiling throws harsh shadows across the upper body. Floor routines in gymnastics share some of the same lighting quirks inside arenas with mixed light sources, and our piece on the technical side of shooting gymnastics floor routines goes deeper into colour temperature and white balance when the venue cannot offer a custom rig.
Capturing the moments that matter off the jumps
Not every strong image comes from the apex of a jump. Coaches often ask us to look for the moment a skater lands a clean program and the relief shows in their shoulders. Parents want the candid shots of the warm-up hug before a skater heads onto the ice. Judges and club presidents use our images for end-of-year reports, and a good candid of a junior skater with their coach can be more valuable to a club than a frame-perfect triple toe loop.
We also try to capture the culture around the sport. The car park full of families unloading boot bags at 6am, the volunteer timekeepers running a stopwatch and a notepad in a rink foyer, the little sister asleep on a pile of jackets in the stands. Those images tend to end up as club social media posts rather than personal galleries, and they help the sport tell its own story.
Between venues, the team has its own small rituals. Someone always finds a coffee cart at the rink foyer, someone else swears by a particular brand of hand warmers, and a couple of crew members unwind by checking their favourite bonus wheel site on a phone screen in the back of the car on the long drive between Sydney and Melbourne.
Delivering galleries when the ice melts
By Sunday night, the editing suite looks like a small warehouse. We start culling within hours of the final event so families can see fresh images before the school week begins. Standard turnaround for a weekend of figure skating events is seventy-two hours, with a teaser gallery posted the next morning. Every skater gets a folder tagged by club, level, and program, and a free sample gallery goes out to the host rink for their own use.
Privacy is part of that workflow. We follow the Australian Privacy Principles when tagging minors in public galleries, and we only use a skater's full name when a parent has signed the relevant media release at registration. Some families ask us to use first name only, and we honour that request by default for under-eighteen athletes. It is a small thing that respects the work parents and clubs do to keep young skaters safe.
Working with a team that travels well
A weekend like this is rarely a two-person job. We roster a lead shooter, a second shooter, and a remote editor who handles the upload queue so the on-site team can stay focused. We are often asked how photographers and assistants can join the crew, and the employment page on our site has the current openings, expected travel between states, and a few sample galleries from past weekends.
Most of our shooters come up through local camera clubs or university media programs in Sydney, Brisbane, or Perth, and we mentor them through their first sanctioned events. The travel roster rotates so no one is away from home for more than two weekends in a row, which matters when the calendar stretches across winter in multiple states.
Practical tips from a weekend of figure skating photography
- Format every memory card the night before, and pack at least one spare body even if you only plan to shoot with one.
- Walk the rink the day before an event to spot where the lighting drops and which boards block spectator sightlines.
- Use a lens hood indoors to cut glare from overhead fluorescent tubes, and bring a small roll of gaffer tape to mask any bright emergency exit signs that bleed into the frame.
- Build a relationship with the music operator. A quick wave when a program starts is often the only reliable cue you will get.
- Ask the host club for a list of skaters with media restrictions, and respect every request on that list.
- Carry a printed schedule. Phone batteries die in the cold, and a paper run-of-show has rescued more than one of our shoots.
The final session of the weekend ended with a small group of senior ladies taking the ice for a last practice run. The rink was nearly empty, the music was soft, and the shutter clicked a few more times for our own memories. A busy weekend of figure skating events is tiring, but it is also one of the most rewarding ways to spend a few days behind a lens.