This is one of my very first CrossFit photos (still one of my favorites), taken in the distant year of 2015 at the Ironbox (today IronBox CrossFit Jamor).
It launched my project Life In a Box, that recently received an Honourable Mention at the IPA (International Photography Awards).
More importantly, it sparked my passion for CrossFit, as a photography subject and sports discipline.
I began practicing about a year after I took this photo and today CrossFit is an important part of my life. I can even go as far as saying that it is part of me, given the number of marks it has left on my body!😄
I found what I had long been looking for: a broad and complete training system that would serve as a base for my sports activities (Climbing, Aikido, Windsurf...) and for my health in general. Training alone always bored me and the Health Club's "Body Stuff" (Body Pump, Body Balance, Cycle, Spartans...), though intense, seemed incomplete.
With CrossFit, I felt that, for the first time, I had a balanced and complete training programme, full of new skills to learn (olympic weightlifting was and still is one of my biggest challenges). Moreover, I discovered that which makes CrossFit so unique: the Community. All the people who get together everyday for a dose of "joyful suffering". Who truly support each other, with healthy competitiveness, cheering you on, or just giving you an exhausted fist bump at the end of a workout.
CrossFit Alpha Den in now my second home. This box is the paradigm of high quality training in a safe and friendly environment. I can't give them enough praise, they hugely contribute to my physical and mental sanity, especially during this never ending pandemic.
It builds top notch athletes, but more than anything, it is a place of inclusion and solidarity.
Back to the photo, I thought it would be interesting to also display the "out of camera" version, with no post-production, as a way of showing that the photographic process need not end with what we see, but rather with what we want to see.