Some Paint Bullet Wars

[Rick Waldroup]

Competitive paintball has been around for quite a while now, its nothing that new and its veryy high up there on the list for number of participants for an extreme sport. The attraction is everything about it really. It takes a lot of thinking and requires intense physical ability. Im not too big of a fan on the recreational side of it with forests and trenches but theres a lot of people into that, it gives them the feeling of battle without actually having to be in it.

Thank you. I was aware of the forest type camps for paintball, but I was not aware of the advanced competative stage of the sport. I have a friend who dabbled in this and used to talk about contests and such. I must be living in a cave. I did not know that it had advanced to the point of having teams and leagues.

The shots by Dan are really good in that they show the competitiveness of the sport and the interesting gear that is used. Shots 4 & 5 especially are excellent.

 

[Rick Waldroup]

Oops, double post.

 

[IanRB]

ya the sport has come a longggg way since the day it was just kids in the forest playing capture the flag. There is pro, semi pro, and multiple divisions of teams. the pro teams win large cash prizes for winning (i believe its $50k for nppl?)

 

[deputydan]

Yes, $50k for pro nppl is correct, although it's still really tough for a pro player to make a living off the sport unless they work for one of the companies within the industry.

Here's one I took of Avalanche during prelims yesterday. They went on to beat San Diego Aftermath today for first place in the open division.

 

[deputydan]

A few more from Sunday.

 

[deputydan]

This one was fun. Click the image for a larger version.

 

[daybreak]

Those are some great pics.

Do you have to wear goggles if you're shooting inside the field? I'm assuming you do but I imagine that can be hard to frame a shot while wearing a mask.

and how is avalanche doing this year anyway, it's been a couple years since i've kept up with NPPL. It is a great (but expensive) sport.

 

[deputydan]

Yes, you still have to wear goggles on the field if you are not playing. I find that the goggles with a flatter lens (jt flex, vents) work much better than those with a more bubbled lens (vforce and dye goggles). I can see roughly 80% of the viewfinder with my proflex and only about 50% with a profiler.

Avalanche is doing fairly well in both leagues this year. They just won the PSP River City Open, the event I was shooting. They didn't fair so well in Boston, but all the other events they've done really good (top 4).

Big edit: Here are some more from RCO.
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10 (of course I have to toss one of Gary in, paintballphotography.com)

 

[deputydan]

Blah, one more. This is a pic of Ollie Lang, supposedly the best player in the world. He makes $100,000 a year just to shoot people.

 

[daybreak]

Ollie and I (Huntington Beach in 05 I think ... the Dynasty days..)

bwaha, i'm wearing an XSV shirt and he still took the photo with me.

 

[deputydan]

Nice. Somebody had the ironmen sign their shirt at RCO, they crossed out whatever company logo was on it (draxxus I think) and wrote DYE lol.

 

[deputydan]

So I was looking for a couple shots in particular that I wanted to post...and ended up with a buttload that I liked.

 

[deputydan]

Here's some from practice yesterday.

 

[deputydan]

Here's some from a local 3 man yesterday, and a couple from practice afterward.

 

[NateOntario]

Awesome man,

I wasn't expecting to find any other paintball players in here

I'll have some shots from tomorrow maybe, my buddy is bringing his camera.

Are you coming out to World Cup?