The long wall at 35mm
The widest clean background on the floor. Stand back to the far mats and it fills a landscape frame edge to edge with holds and no ceiling. Best for lookbooks with several models in one line.
Sheet 01 · The floor575 Degraw St · Brooklyn, NY 11217Stills · Film · Portraits · Events
Location for sport · Brooklyn, NY
A real climbing gym, booked for your camera.
A working bouldering gym at 575 Degraw St, hired out as a climbing gym photo shoot location and an event floor. The routes are set by working setters for members to climb. A floor spotter stands under every move above head height.
- Booked by
- Photographers, crews, athletes, brands
- Price basis
- Quoted per booking after the recce
- Spotting
- Every move above head height
01Overview
A climbing gym photo shoot location that is still a climbing gym.
The floor is a working bouldering and rope gym in Brooklyn. Members train here. Setters strip and re-bolt the walls on a schedule. When you book it, you get the space as it actually is, not a set built to look like one.
That matters on camera more than people expect. Chalk on a real hold sits in the texture of the grip, not on top of it like flour. Rubber marks on the volumes are in the places where feet actually go. A climber on a route that was set to be climbed moves differently to one posing on a hold screwed on for the afternoon, and any athlete in your frame will tell you so before you have finished the first setup.
Most of our bookings are stills and film crews looking for sports photography locations in Brooklyn that do not need dressing. Some are athletes and their managers who want portraits with honest hands. The rest are events: competitions, product launches, team nights. We run the climbing side of all of it.
- The long wallSand-grey texture, mixed-colour holds, dense mats along its base. Reads cleanly on a long lens and gives you a horizon line.
- The overhangSteep enough that a climber on it reads as horizontal on a 35mm. Plan the frame around that.
- The rope wallTall and vertical, top-rope only on shoot days. Belayed by our staff, never by talent.
- The training cornerWooden hangboards and a campus board. Warm grain, window light, very little chalk haze.
- The ceilingExposed steel trusses and hanging lamps. Rigging points are discussed at the recce, not on the day.
We spot every move above head height. That is not negotiable and it will not slow you down much.Floor rule, every booking
What we will not do
- Let talent climb on camera without a studio floor spotter. Every lead or high move is spotted or roped.
- Re-set routes for a shoot on less than a week's notice. Setters work to a schedule, and so do the members who climb here.
- Allow haze, pyro or open flame near the walls. The holds are resin, the mats are foam, and chalk dust already does what haze does.
- Quote a binding price before a recce or a call. We answer with what the wall can do first.
Who books the floor
Four kinds of client, and each has its own page with the rules that apply to it.
Stills crews
Sportswear lookbooks, editorial features, catalogue. Strobes on sandbagged stands, one wall kept clear for you.
Commercial and music-video crews
Commercials, branded content, music video. People who need to rent a climbing gym for a commercial shoot and still have climbers moving in the background.
Athletes and teams
Sports portraits with real holds and a spotter underneath. Climbers, and athletes from other sports who want the wall as a setting.
Brands and clubs
Competitions, launches and team nights, with reportage coverage added if you want the evening photographed.
02What we do
Four ways to book the floor, each quoted after we have seen the shot list.
We do not publish a rate card. The same half-day costs something different for a two-person stills team on one wall than for a thirty-person commercial crew with a generator and a video village. What we quote depends on crew size, the walls you need held, how many hours of load-in and strike, and whether climbing stays open around you.
Send us the shot list and the date. We answer with what the wall can do, then the number, in writing.
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No.01
Photo shoots
Lookbooks, editorial, catalogue.
Strobes are allowed on stands weighted with sandbags, and the studio keeps one wall clear of climbers for the length of the booking. Bring sandbags. The mats are soft and a C-stand on them walks.
Price basisHalf-day or full-day block, quoted after the recce by crew size and walls used Stills location hire -
No.02
Film and video
Commercials, branded content, music video, documentary.
A bouldering gym film location in NYC with real power questions attached. Video village sits off the mats. Drones fly only indoors, under the ceiling trusses, with a named pilot we have spoken to before the day.
Price basisFull-day block with load-in and strike counted, quoted by crew size and power draw Film location rental -
No.03
Athlete portraits
Climbers and athletes from other sports.
Real chalk, real holds, a spotter under every move above head height. A climber can safely repeat a low move twenty times. A dyno at the top of the wall gets three good takes and then a rest.
Price basisPer session, floor spotter included, quoted on the request Athlete portrait studio -
No.04
Events and reportage
Competitions, launches, team nights.
A climbing gym event venue in Brooklyn where the floor staff run the climbing side while you run the evening. A corporate event at a climbing gym works best when the guests who want to climb get a real briefing and the rest have somewhere to stand that is not a mat.
Price basisPer event, quoted by headcount, hours and whether climbing stays open. Reportage is a coverage block quoted by hours on the floor. Events on the floor
How a quote is built
Crew size, walls held, hours including load-in and strike, power draw, and whether members keep climbing.
Nothing is binding until it is confirmed in writing after the recce or a call. The recce itself is arranged by email.
The failure we see most
A crew arrives with a shot list written for a studio cyc and finds that the best wall faces the wrong way for their key light. You cannot turn a wall. You can turn the set-up, if you know by Thursday rather than at 7am on Saturday. That is why the recce exists, and why the shoot finder asks what you are making before it tells you anything else.
03Proof
Eight camera positions on the floor, and what each one does to a lens.
Notes from the floor desk, wall by wall. Drag, scroll or use the arrow keys.
The long wall at 85mm
Compressed, the holds turn into colour texture behind a sharp subject. Put the talent a body length off the wall and the background goes soft without a single flag.
Under the overhang
Shoot up from the mats and the climber goes nearly horizontal against the trusses. Heel hooks read clearly. The shadow is deep at the back of the cave, so bring fill or embrace it.
The overhang, side on
From the aisle you get the angle of the wall as a graphic diagonal. It is the frame most commercial crews end up using for the hero shot, usually after trying three others.
The rope wall, portrait frame
Height is the whole point here. A vertical frame with the belayer at the base tells the viewer the scale in one look. Top-rope only, belayed by our staff.
The training corner
Wood, window light and almost no chalk in the air. The calmest background in the building and the one athletes from other sports tend to prefer for portraits.
Looking straight up
Trusses, ducting and rows of warm lamps. A strong cutaway for film edits and a clean top-down for flat-lay work shot from a ladder we supply and foot.
The mats between attempts
Where the candid frames live. Climbers sit, chalk up, look up at the problem. Reportage photographers spend half the evening here and get the best pictures of the night.
01 / 08
How a full-day block usually runs
A typical stills or film day, as we plan it with the producer. Exact hours are agreed in writing when you book.
The times move. The order does not. Load-in before safety brief, safety brief before the first climber leaves the ground.
- Week −1Recce and hold coloursWalk the floor with the shot list. Any route or hold colour you need in frame is requested now, because setters work a week out.
- Hour 0Load-inCarts roll across the aisle, not the mats. Cable mats go down where we mark. Stands get sandbags before they get lights.
- Hour 1Safety briefTen minutes with the floor lead. Where the fall zones are, who spots, what a stop call sounds like.
- Hours 1–7ShootingTalent climbs with a spotter or on a rope. Chalk brushed off holds between setups on request. Held wall stays clear of members.
- Last hourStrikeKit off the floor, tape up, mats back where they were. Strike time counts in the block, so plan it in.
04Contact
Send the shot list and the date.
We answer with what the wall can do, not a rate card. A short note is fine: the kind of job, the rough crew size, the date or a window of dates. The longer brief can come later, or go through the full inquiry form.
575 Degraw St
Brooklyn, NY 11217
United States
- What you are making, and for whom.
- The date, or the window you are working in.
- Crew size on the day, including talent.
- Anything with a plug. Power draw changes the quote.
Inquiry · Call sheetAnswered by the floor desk
Shoot finder
Type what you are planning. We will tell you if the floor can take it.
Sneaker lookbook, drone, night shoot, team night, product on the wall. The finder on the planning page answers with the page that covers it and the one thing people usually get wrong.
A lookup, not a booking. Anything it does not know goes straight to the floor desk with your words attached.