Lighting up Wells Fargo Arena

Prep sports is big part of our coverage at the Gazette, so when state tournament season rolls around we do everything we can to provide compelling images of our teams. The winter tournament season includes three weeks of coverage at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines, kicking off Wednesday with wrestling, so we set up strobes in the catwalks to give an extra kick to our photos. Our newer cameras (Canon MkIV) are much better at indoor sports action than our older cameras (Canon MkII) were, but there's still a big difference between lit and unlit photos (which we will show you in a future post, after the tournament is over). Setting up strobes isn't as simple as hanging a few lights, however, so Cliff and I took some photos as we ran around on the catwalks to show you a little bit of our work behind the scenes.

First things first, we pair every light with a mounting clamp, trigger cable, power cable, safety cable and reflector with a plexiglass cover. The plexi will keep glass shards from raining down on the spectators below, should a light blow during an event, and the safety cable will keep the whole unit from crashing down if the clamp fails. Above left, Cliff uses zip ties to attach the covers to the reflectors, and right, ducks to make his way down the catwalk while holding an assembled unit.

We're working high up in the arena, so chains and clamps are used to ensure nothing falls -- both while we're setting up and during the tournaments.

We use a lot of zip ties, to hold down and hang power cords, PocketWizard remote triggers and power strips. Gaffers tape is used liberally too.

Mostly unrelated, the view from the top floor at the arena is pretty great. After working in the dusty catwalk for hours, this was a nice visual refresher.

The colors are popping and light looks pretty even from above, so it's time to head to the floor for some test shots...

...and goading Cliff into a wrestling-ish pose on each mat. In the morning we'll start shooting the state duals, so expect to see lots of fresh work on the galleries section back on

our home page. And for all the

State Wrestling action.