Sports

Six Years Into My CrossFit Photography Journey

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Female athlete, executing a back squat with barbell during a CrossFit WOD
 

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.

Female athlete, executing a back squat with barbell during a CrossFit WOD

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.

Finding Order in Chaos

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There are few things I enjoy more than going to a sports event with my camera in hand, free to capture whatever I like.

And although I can never turn away from a classic action shot, I also find myself looking for a more abstract type of scene, where the athlete, never ceasing to be the key element, shares some of his/her spotlight with other aspects of the image, like the landscape and the equipment.

While organising my recent photos from Crossfit and OCR (Obstacle Course Racing) competitions, I also found that by grouping certain images the resulting sets (of 3 photos) became much more interesting than the individual photos.
This is common practice in the editorial world, but nonetheless fascinating. It’s like finding order in chaos.

 

Wild Challenge Cascais 2016 - Obstacle Course Racing

 

Wild Challenge Cascais 2016 - Obstacle Course Racing

 

Wild Challenge Cascais 2016 - Obstacle Course Racing

 

Loures Urban Obstacles 2016 - Obstacle Course Racing

 

Wild Challenge Cascais 2016 - Obstacle Course Racing

 

Manz Cross Games 2016 - CrossFit

 

Manz Cross Games 2016 - CrossFit

Life In a Box - Photographing CrossFit Athletes

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“I have a good feeling about this”. That’s what I thought when I walked into a CrossFit box for the first time.
I was looking for a theme for a sports related photography project and had found it!

 

 

CrossFit has all the ingredients that I was looking for: the intensity, the interaction between people and the raw quality of the environment and the equipment that enhances the emotional charge of the images.

Also, I had a free pass to shoot, thanks to the amazing friendliness of the instructors and members at Ironbox, who have been putting up with me for the past few months!

 

I had seen (and felt) some really strong fitness programs before, but this was a whole new level, mostly because of the variety and high intensity of the workouts.

“What is CrossFit?” is answered in many articles all over the internet, including this one (in Portuguese), on the In Shape website. But I prefer to use photographs to show the dedication, the intensity, the sacrifice and the power of these athletes.

You can see more of my CrossFit photos in this gallery - Life In a Box - which will be updated as I go along.

Raquel

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One of the things that makes an athlete a special breed of model is the ability to bring intensity to an image.
Besides having a sculptural body (which is something many other models have), they can pull off poses of such elegance and power that I have a hard time believing we're even from the same species…

And if I need to fine tune their expression, all I have to do is ask them to remember their last training session or the final stretch of a competition… determination will become written all over their face!

It’s not by chance that a lot of the sports stars become photographic models, take Cristiano Ronaldo and Nelson Évora, for example.

Raquel used to be a high class gymnast and although it’s been a while since her last competition, and she’s a bit “rusty” (her words, not mine!), she still looks absolutely superhuman to anyone who can’t take their nose to their toes!