The Fighter

The four prints from APPA 2015 have become pretty dear to me – I feel like I’ve been thinking about them and working them for a really long time. Usually I give a little bit of a story behind them; this year I’m going to try something different, and take you through each image from start to finish. Here’s the first one 🙂

Lauren is a close and dear friend of ours. She’s a bit of a superwoman – singer, musician, fighter… singing teacher, combat teacher, and primary teacher. Not to mention she is mum to our daughter’s best friend! She’s one of the hardest workers I know, and moves heaven and earth to keep everything for her family trucking along. We’d been talking for ages about doing a muai thai shoot together, probably with her wrapping her wrists, in the ring, preparing for a fight. Then our friend Matt Palmer posts this well executed image on his Art of Action facebook page, and suddenly the bar is raised and we have some more work to do!

Rather than just a straight athletic portrait, we started putting together the idea that Lauren would be preparing for a fight, but the battleground is the heart of her house and her family – her kitchen. The kitchen is the ring, and her opponents are many and varied – all of the things that Lauren has to do, all of the obstacles that get in her way, or her daughter’s way.

Of course, as the session progressed, we talked more, and I got to know Lauren even better. Much of that won’t make it to this story (is there such a thing as photographer-subject privilege?), but suffice it to say, Lauren likes to be independent. She suits up for the fight that is coming, and while she’s doing that, she’s thinking about the next one after that, and the one after that. There will always be another storm.

Right at the end of the session, Lauren struck a super strong pose. “Square your shoulders to me. Plant your feet. Now put that wrap on, and take your time.” Or something like that. For three minutes, Lauren’s breathing was different, her stance even more resolute. As soon as that set was finished, I stepped away from the camera – shoot over. Sometimes you know you have the shot.

To create the finished product, I layered in some Brisbane Arts Theatre lights from some production photos of ImproMafia’s 2014 season of Agatha Holmes, along a little smoke (from my handy dandy smoke machine) and some dust (from my handy dandy wife Wanda spraying water with a spray bottle), and we’re good to go!

The image went through a number of evolutions, refining the lights at the back (to be more boxing-ring-like and less jazz-hands-theatre-like), the smoke and dust, and some of the details on the fridge and the counters.

Final result – a Silver award at the 2015 APPAs! I’m really pleased for Lauren that her image scored Silver at both the state and national level. This makes it two years running for her; in 2014, she featured in our Dawn at Dawn print, which also won Silver at the state and national level! Will you see her in 2016? Stay tuned, sportsfans…