Primal Combat Academy
Contact sports has always been a part of my life from a young age and in particular martial arts. I studied the likes of Karate, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Thai Boxing, Kickboxing and MMA as a whole for a large chunk of my existence on this planet and there was just something about martial arts i couldn’t shake. Fast forward to my late 20’s and a series of knee injuries put a stop to any form of success or training in general - and my physical representation in that sport came to an end.
When i took up photography (and video) i always thought it would be amazing to end up being able to capture the many forms of martial arts and pushing it out to covering all contact sports or sports in general. Luckily a model i know by the name of Nicole Headworth, invited me to her local MMA gym where she has begun training to meet a few of the team and have a relaxed shoot!
This was the best news i have been lucky to receive so far in 2022 - This isn’t always about money, this was about the love for the game.
I arrived at Primal Combat Academy in the Clacton region of Essex and met Nicole - She introduced me to head coach Paul and one of the gyms fighters, Will. Everyone was so relaxed and happy to go with the flow - this made my anxiety and stress levels reduce dramatically.
We started off on the bags - I wanted everyone warmed up but also i wanted to figure out how to light the areas of the gym with the gear i had - The fighters, just did their thing on the bags and once i was happy with the placement of the light, they took directions like the true professionals they are.
After the bags we moved over to the boxing ring where i just wanted to grab some relaxed shots of them against the ropes and corner pads. I lit this section mainly with the Pixapro CITI300pro in an octabox and then adding a Godox AD200 as a kicker from the side, just to offer a little difference to the photos.
I also asked Nicole at this stage to stand agains the corner pad as another option in this tight space. Although Nicole worked the shot like a champ, the background and surroundings were not quite up to scratch (something to try next time though).
I remembered to bring along a pop up backdrop incase i wanted to shoot a few composite ideas or just some promos in general. I set up the lights with the CITI300pro as the key light and then 2x strip boxes to the rear - This is something that i normally use for the majority of my studio work, but this time… the lights just didn’t want to play ball! Still unsure why the problem existed, i decided to try and get what i could from this set and was fairly happy how some of them turned out in the end.
We then decided to wrap up the shoot by doing a few shots in the cage. i wanted the subjects to just let loose by doing abit of shadow boxing/kicking and then to throw a few jump kicks or high roundhouse kicks. They didn’t disappoint!
I shot this set using the Pixapro CITI300pro as the main light and then a Godox AD200 outside of the cage for a kicker (even though it was intermittent).
