A photographer’s guide to shooting Hyrox events
After recently working on a Hyrox Elite 15 event, I wanted to jot down some thoughts and observations about what it’s like to photograph a HYROX event—specifically the World Championships. There’s a lot going on at these competitions, and it’s not a typical sports photo setup.
1 Unconventional venues: Low light + mixed movement speeds
Most HYROX venues are indoors or hosted at night— often big convention center spaces. The lighting in these spaces is inconsistent and dim (relative to daytime sports). I get into more detail on low light shooting techniques in another post.
That limitation opened up some creative options. I didn’t need ND filters to play with longer exposures. I leaned into the low light and embraced the noise in my images.
I used on camera flash for parts of the event, which helped me relieve some of the pressure on high shutter speeds. If you’re bringing flash, bring gels. You’ll want to match the off color venue lighting so your images look consistent.
2 Bring as much as you can but find drop off spots
Like most sporting events, the venues are massive and require a lot of walking. You’re on your feet constantly. Walking from one end to the other might take 10 minutes—add fans and barriers and that doubles. I tried to avoid running back and forth for gear and simplify my setup.
I packed in a modular way. I used my home base location in the media room plus brought a small pack that I could leave in a safe place closer to the race. There are several spaces you can leave gear. This allowed me to move well without having to leave everything behind. It was still exhausting and I had a bit of shin splints on the first day which I never get! If I could, I’d bring a scooter or one-wheel next time just to save time and energy getting from A to B. I got rides from the convention staff when I could.
The venue is so big I had everything delivered including meals. Getting to actual food meant a 30-minute walk each way, and would cost a lot of time.
3 Stay fluid but stick to a plan
HYROX races are chaotic athletes are crisscrossing the course. Fans are right on top of the athletes and you’re constantly navigating moving bodies, trying to cross over laps and dodge competitors.
But the event flow is fairly predictable. You know the workout stations in advance. You know roughly how long athletes spend at each one and that gives you the chance to plan your shots—especially in the open field heats, where access is more relaxed.
The elite field and livestream zones are a different story. Movement is limited. Fans pack into the viewing spaces. If you want a certain shot, you need to plan your route well ahead of time and stick to it. If you push past your time to move to new location, you can easily miss it with the fan traffic.
Don’t try to cover every station. Prioritize what you want and move strategically because the event stations are not linearly positioned. If you chase the race, you will kill a lot of time moving to the next station. And you’ll miss key moments—like the wall balls or the finish line.
TIP: Know which of the metal barriers are moveable and allowed for your media access level. I had access to some spaces that were not obvious to me at first.
4 Finding intensity
HYROX is a goldmine for authentic, high-effort emotion. The athletes are fully into it and there is a lot of diversity in body types, gear, tattoos, etc. One of the athletes asked me how she could get more images out of her races (from photographers) and so I wrote out a few tips for her.
Depending on the race, you’re often just feet away from the athletes so the shooting is quite different from many sports where you might better utilize long lens and distance.
5 Find unusual locations around the venue
Because these venues are unconventional, they come with quirks—and opportunities.
Each venue has pockets: skylights, weird side corridors, reflective surfaces. I like to explore these before the event starts.
There is quite a bit of branding. I found myself drawn to the HYROX logos most. Some of the partner branding felt off in certain setups, so I worked to avoid it.
6 Tech + Workflow Considerations
WiFi in these venues can be unreliable. We were uploading to the cloud from laptops and sometimes that meant just leaving the computer open and plugged in, hoping the files finished before we needed to head back out.
If you’re shooting for a client and need quick turnaround, plan on slow uploads. Bring an SSD or a system for local file transfers just in case.
Alternatively, you could use an FTP server setup and use something like Cyberduck to transfer content more reliably which I have done with other leagues.
Also, bring earplugs. The noise—especially around the wall balls and finish line—is excessive. If you are spending extended time in that section you will need earplugs.
Photographing HYROX is physically demanding but a creatively rewarding engagement. Following the World Champs, I worked at the Melbourne Major and write about that here.