Photographer's weird sports book chronicles underwater hockey, cheese rolling and more

Photographing traditional sports used to be a great career path for photographer Sol Neelman. 

But taking photos of "weird sports," as he calls them, has given him more to laugh about — and to capture moments of people finding happiness.

"I wanted to document people celebrating joy," the Portland, Ore., photographer told The Current.

Weird sports have altered the course of his career. Now, Neelman has documented it all in his new book More Weird Sports. 

"Most of the time people come up to me and it's like, 'Can you believe this? Is this the weirdest thing you've seen?'" he said. "I'm like, 'Well, it's up there, but I've seen a lot.'"

Neelman's career in weird sports began in 2005, when he stumbled upon a roller derby — a sport that might not seem so weird today, though it was certainly less common at the time.

But when he had the opportunity to photograph a Seattle league derby game, it opened up a world of possibilities in the field of unusual sports. 

"I had so much fun, I immediately started searching online — there was a weird sports list, it was 10 sports," said Neelman. 

From there, his obsession with photographing weird sports escalated.

Before he knew it, Neelman was taking photos of other strange sports around the world. 

He leapt at the chance to photograph underwater hockey in England, for example — which is more or less exactly what it sounds like.

"You hold your breath for about three minutes and you play hockey on the floor of a swimming pool," he said. 

In 2015,he photographed Barbie Jeep downhill racing in Arkansas — where participants race kid-sized Jeeps downhill.

"It was a spectacular event," he said. "Lots of laughter, lots of cheap beer, lots of wipeouts, lots of great photos."

But perhaps one of