Gallery – Repton Boxing Club

I booked a workshop with Andrew Mason from 36exp based at the historic Repton Boxing Club in London’s Bethnal Green.

This place literally oozes character  and the posters that adorn the walls attest to the history of the place.  This isn’t a trendy boxercise gym – this is hardcore and aimed squarely at competitive athletes.

We worked with four boxers who went through a training programme which we were able to photograph, followed by some set-ups specifically done for the sake of photography.

Generally with an event like this, it really helps to have a plan of what you want to achieve, but with enough flexibility to adapt to circumstances.  I had taken some inspiration from Glyn Dewis’ images, but wanted to add my own style.

I knew most of the images would be converted to monochrome, and I wanted them to be quite contrasty and gritty to convey some of the atmosphere of the place. I was looking for good light – and we were lucky to have some angular spring sunlight which worked well with the skylights and windows in the venue.  Most of the images are shot in ambient light, with a studio flash and umbrella only used for fill-in and freezing action when necessary.

To start with the boxers warmed up with skipping ropes and practising combinations of manoeuvres.  The photographers also warmed up experimenting with settings and tweaking them to get the right response and results.  Photographically this didn’t yield many keeper images for me, but was useful to get settings dialled in before the real action began… We new things were about to get interesting when they started preparing their wraps and gloves…

The first real action was at the hanging punch bags.  I’ve seen and used these myself, but the ones at Repton were quite different – much more heavy duty – and with a smooth surface polished from constant use.  We were lucky the morning sunlight was streaming through the windows and shining into the area where the bags were located.

There’s a balance to be had – fast enough shutter to be sharp – sharp enough to get a good ‘face’,  but slow enough to show some movement in the arm and fist.  I used Canon’s “Fv” mode so I could fix speed and aperture, while the camera adjusted ISO to keep the exposure under control.  For Auto-Focus I used the AI Tracking Eye AF mode – which never seems to do quite as well for me as it did in Jared Polin’s video reviews.

Are all the shots as sharp as they could be?  Does it matter?  For me they’re about conveying what it felt like to be there – not making a verbatim graphic representation that would satisfy a nit-picking gamer club judge.  I hope I succeeded.

Following the bags, the lads donned pads and went one-on-one with some pad work.  Again the aim here was light and enough movement, which capturing something of the dynamic between the gloved boxer and his padded partner.

More to come as I finish editing images…