My final project is a photography project based around the idea of power. I am visiting an amateur boxing gym near my home . The boxing gym takes on a lot of children from the inner city area around it. I want to show the people in the gym and the gym itself and this blatant and most obvious idea of power.
Mike O’Meally
Howard Bingham
When we were kings
Lee Friedlander
Garry Winogrand
Martin Parr
What makes my project different?
I grew up ten minutes away from the boxing club and was quite the trouble maker when I was young. I sometimes think that if I did something like boxing involving discipline would I have grown up to be a different person? I want to show an outsider’s view on what goes on in the gym but I want to show why it is these people do what they do. From the very young kids to the grown men and the trainers why do they spend their time here making very little money if any at all? Also going to interview them and write an essay to go along with my photographs I think much like some photographers do such as Jeff Brouws. This will be made up of my thoughts and interviews with the people from the club to help people understand the photographs.
Where am I now?
Confirmed with Small Heath boxing club to shoot there over a couple of weeks but have only so far confirmed that I have permission to shoot in the club. Been doing research on documentary photographers and been getting lots of practice with my different cameras. Ordered 25 rolls of film for my 35mm camera which means that I can shoot 900 images. This cost me more or less £75 and developing is free cause I can do it here and scan the pictures myself. Also going to order 15 rolls of colour film which gives me another 540 images. This cost me around £45. This will cost me money to develop, around £60 to get the negatives developed and then I can scan the images myself.
What next?
Next week I have a meeting at the boxing club with not only the trainers but also the members as well. After that I’ll be meeting with the younger members’ parents to get some of them to sign release forms so I can take pictures of them as well as the older members. A meeting with a Krav Maga instructor as well next week in case I want to branch out my idea to other aspects of physical self defence.
