Introduction
At the age of nine I joined a local martial
arts academy called Maverick Freestyle. They offer a unique blend of martial
arts including tae kwon do, karate and kickboxing. I was so impressed by the
skills of the instructors and higher grade kids that I became a devoted
student. I became a first-degree black belt at the age of sixteen and had
learned about far more than how to defend myself in my time there. It helped me
to improve my concentration, taught me about respect and responsibility. Taught
me to be courteous to others, to persevere and to never allow my spirit to be
broken. In short I learned that in order to do well in life I needed to work
hard and never give up.
Now that I have become a photographer, I
would like to revisit the dojo and represent the spirit of martial arts in a
photo book.
Aims
& Objectives
Because of the nature of the sport I will
be forced to improve upon my timing, also as the lighting inside the dojo is
non ideal I will be up against several challenges, for example whether or not
to use a flash, what shutter speed and aperture to use and what ISO settings to
use.
In this project I aim to show as much of
the spirit and essence of the academy as possible. I also hope to show the
benefits of taking up a sport such as kickboxing. How it can improve
confidence, social skills and more whilst teaching you the invaluable life
skills that are self defense oriented.
·
I hope to help dispel the
preconceived notion that martial arts are only for violent competition.
·
Show the family atmosphere.
·
Develop my own photographic
style in the work
·
Use editing techniques where
appropriate to enhance image potency
Competition/External
Brief
I have chosen the fotobook festival
competition brief for this project, as I believe that a book will be the best
format for the work I wish to deliver. Using a book I can include written first
hand experiences of the sport as well as being able to explain the context of
the images.
I have looked at the work of previous winners
and been inspired by their use of graphic design-formatting skills and hope to
achieve similarly high standard. The winner last year was a photographer named
Norman Behrendt. He won with a book titled “Burning down the House”
He has extensively photographed Graffiti
writers in Berlin. All the images in the book have excellent lighting and
composition. He also has quoted many of the writers throughout the book, which
gives the work an authentic feel.
For the cover of the book, he used the same
design as the Berlin S-Bahn trains.
Since the work from this book took place
over five year period, I know that the work I produce will be no where near as
extensive as his, however I can begin building a body of work and continue
working on the project beyond the hand in date.
Historical
and Contemporary Context
Although there are an abundance of sport
photographers in the field to choose from as artistic references, it is
somewhat difficult to find any that specialize in Martial arts. Because of this
I anticipate that much of the research material will come from other sport and
dance photographers.
Rachel
Raphael is a photographer I have found online who has a large gallery of
photographs ranging from portraits of babies, models, businessmen and martial
artists. She has a very different style to the way I choose to photograph. I
would rather the project felt as if the viewer was like a fly on the wall
rather than a gallery of staged photographs. I feel that the authenticity of
the atmosphere is somewhat lost in images like these, however I can see a
benefit in having a few shots in a similar style, as it will improve the
diversity of the photographs.
Audience
As Martial arts is an extreme sport the
main demographic will be young men. Although the sport is not exclusive to men
it is still very much male dominated. Hopefully because I aim to represent the
other aspects and benefits of the sport it will appeal to a larger demographic.
If well executed the project will also appeal to parents and young women who
see the advantages of learning self-defense as well as members of the older
generation who perhaps thought about taking up such a sport in their youth. I believe
that martial arts can be beneficial to anyone and hope to get that across in my
work.
