This photo essay, by Chloe Moon Flaherty, 18, of Los Angeles, is the winner of The Learning Network’s new “Where We Are” Photo Essay Contest, which invited teenagers to document a community that interested them.
“I’d never done sports photography before,” Chloe wrote in a statement describing her process. She spent two weeks shooting the L.A. Derby Dolls’ practices and shadowing her friends who were involved with derby (including sleeping over and waking up with them at 7 a.m. to shoot them getting ready).
She said this assignment challenged her to get to know her camera better, to learn how to capture energetic subjects, and to advocate for herself as a journalist.
“With every question and favor I asked for, such as getting onto the box where all the lights are to get my wide shot,” she wrote, “I became more and more confident in asserting myself.”
You can also see the work of our runners-up here and a list of all the finalists here.
The L.A. Derby Dolls Take Up Space
In Vernon, Calif., past the meatpacking plants and product distribution centers, a lone warehouse door opens, and the noise of roller skates echoes into the surrounding streets.
The warehouse, seemingly vacant, is home to the L.A. Derby Dolls, Los Angeles’s original women-led roller derby league — one of only 13 banked track leagues in the United States. Founded in 2003, its initial goal was to both legitimize roller derby as a sport and to create a space for girls to skate. Today, girls and nonbinary kids, ages ranging from eight to 17, race across the track in a storm of jerseys with skulls, blood-red mouth guards and ripped fishnets.
Many of the skaters are hitting a pivotal point in adolescence when they begin to fear being perceived as too loud or as taking up too much space. Derby culture, however, embraces the unconventional: the track is a place where their individuality is not a source of tension, but celebration.
With names like Luna Shove Good and Thugs Bunny, the message is clear: Derby Dolls are tough, powerful and unapologetic. To them, roller derby is not just a workout, but a community where they are accepted unconditionally.
