TACOMA, Wash. — "So why don't we go with a tough 'we mean business' photo?" Brittany Rose Bradley asks members of Tacoma's Dockyard Roller Derby league at Dune Peninsula at Point Defiance Park. Bradley is in the midst of a Northwest road trip, stopping at various locations to photograph portraits of roller derby queens.
"I think the people who play roller derby are just incredibly complex humans," Bradley said. "They have normal jobs. But then they have this alternate ego persona that they get to roll out on the track and fully embody and embrace so they walk around almost like superheroes with this whole other life and I find that really fascinating!"
Bradley is a roller derby player herself. She's wearing roller skates and enjoys meeting the players.
"I think in order to be an efficient portrait photographer, you have to be a storyteller," she said. "and so I love to find out a little bit about them and how we can tell their story."
Bradley takes the time to show off her camera.
"Everything is backwards and upside down which is how your eye sees it but your brain flips it for you, " she points out to those looking through the view finder.
"There is another reason I'm on roller skates," she said.
Bradley uses an alternative photo process called wet plate collodion process, which originated in the 1850s.
"It's incredibly important for me to get to and from my camera and the mobile darkroom as fast as I can," she said. "The farther away I get the higher the risk that I won't get an image at all."
So Bradley races back and forth on wheels.
"It's an incredibly laborious process, but I love the idea that I can only get one shot, right?" she said. "I can't make 200."
Bradley will makes hundreds of plates for an upcoming exhibition and eventual books.
"It's a way to give back to a sport that has given her so much," she said.
"Roller derby has given me a family, has given me a purpose, has reminded me of my strength and my endurance and my resilience," she said. "I am living out my childhood dream in more than one way. Sometimes I have to remind myself that it's real, but it's incredibly fun and I'm having an excellent time."
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