There
have been a number of well known photographers that I have noticed
covering Boxing subjects in the past, including Neil Leifer, Larry
Fink & Al Satterwhite, having seen these images and wanting to
head into sports photography in the future, I thought now was a
better time than any to follow in the their footsteps. This was also
an opportunity to work with a subject matter literally closer to home
in Cardiff, recently there have been a number of successful Welsh
boxers in the professional ranks, Joe Calzaghe, Nathan Cleverly &
more recently Lee Selby, I thought that their success would have
inspired a generation within South Wales and I began researching
boxing gyms within the locality of Cardiff.
This
is where I ran into some problems early into the project, had sent
out emails to about 7 boxing gyms that I had located through
WelshBoxing.org, I didn't receive any sort of reply for about a week,
I had addresses for these gyms but did not want to waste a trip to
Cardiff just to be refused access. I decided to ring some of the
numbers that I had also recorded, about 5 of these numbers didn't
even go to answer phone. I eventually received a reply off Terry
Smith, who could not help me directly with getting access to the
gyms, but forwarded my enquiry to the chairman of Welsh Boxing, Dave
Francis who I ended up having a telephone conversation with,
eventually leading to another dead end.
This
was when I pulled the plug on Cardiff, It would have been great to
cover something close to home, but after watching Lee Selby fight on
TV, I didn't want to jump into my back up ideas just yet, and decided
to research his background more intensely, he trained in a
professional facility in Bristol, a quick google search and I
contacted Bristol Boxing Gym, receiving a swift reply saying come
down any time!
The
first shoot took place on the 24th October, and I think it
went well, I met some great subjects that had no qualms in me being
there and in some instances played up for the lens. I photographed
about 5 athletes in this session, training for up coming local
fights, It was clear that the most interesting story was that of
Chris & Duane Winters, who were father & son, training for
his professional debut before Lee Haskins (Duane's sparring partner)
international bout on the 5th December.
Technically
I think that the images were strong, It was not the darkest
environment to shoot but I did want to keep to higher shutter speeds
in order to catch fast moving action inside the ring for example,
meaning that for the most part the images are sharp but some of the
images are noisy. Narrowing down the 200 photographs that I shot, I
produced an edit of 20 images for feedback in class, and I became
aware of images that will be appropriate for the narrative, shots
that aren't appropriate for a smaller edit, mainly detail shots of
items around the gym, which present lighting errors such for example
reflections of the ambient light sources. Shooting in RAW I was also
able to correct any exposure flaws & colour correction in
Photoshop.
I
had researched a large number of black & white images for this
project but after reviewing the images from my first shoot, there are
some vivid & natural contrast in the room, with some heavy
background interest that I think would not be represented well in
Black & White.
The
second shoot took place on the 11th November, It was
closer to the bight in December, so Lee was training without a head
guard which was great to get better action shots in the ring. My last
visit was on a Friday, but this time it was a Tuesday so Chris &
Duane were not there, but I still managed to get some other
meaningful images that can be used, new sparring partners that Lee is
working with, different faces from last time working out around the
gym, and finally some school children watching in on the sparring
session. I knew from the last time that minute detail shots would not
be great for the edit, so this time I wanted to focus more on Lee,
his actions, and reactions of his training partners, which I think
turned out well.
I
was eager to narrow down an edit from both shoots, so the feedback in
class was great help again in knowing where to split the images from
each shoot. It was also helpful to hear Anthony's insight on which
images should be cropped and where the frame should surround the
subjects. This actually resulted in the final edit consisting of an
even number of portrait & landscape images. I then wanted to nail
down the order in which the images appeared in sequence for the
slideshow. I think that my final choice works well, moving as a
narrative when the captions are included. Starting with a general
view, looking up to 'goal' of reaching success at this gym, with
inspiration mottoes being clearly displayed. I then move onto the
main figure for this story, Lee Haskins, and then his sparring
partner, which leads onto the relationship between him, Chris &
Duane. Chris & Duane themselves are products of what Bristol
Boxing Gym has provided for the local community in Bristol, an
opportunity for youngsters to get off the streets and involved
through the Empire Boxing Club.
The
captions for the final 8 images consisted of my research, including
information from the Bristol Post & BoxRec. I also included items
from my notes & observations during my two visits to the gym. I
wanted to keep some of the captions brief so that they flow well with
the images, but I still think that each of them do well to inform the
viewer, not just describing what is in the frame. In reflection I
would have liked to get some quotes from Lee, Chris or Duane,
especially on the run up to the fight, towards the end of this
training regime. To ensure that the images were correctly presented
on Vimeo, I resized them to fit within a video frame, 1000x667 for
landscape & 445x667 for portrait images. When being exported from
Première Pro, I was sure to research what preset Vimeo recommends,
so I decided to use the Vimeo HD H.264.
For
this Assignment I think that I have produced a strong body of work
that is appealing to look at in terms of stand alone images, and when
context is provided from the captions, an interesting narrative
emerges. I also feel that some aspects of the photographers that I
have used for research & inspiration for this project is apparent
in my final edit, although using much less profile athletes, such as
the use of mirrors in compositions, tight portrait of Chris, use of
bust background items and Lee sitting down with Duane. If I was to
undertake this project again in the future, I'd like to get to know
the individual athletes more, photographing their typical training
day from sunrise to sunset, this could evoke a more personal story
and a truer documentation of their passion & dedication for the
sport of boxing.
