BXR, LONDON TRAINING GROUNDS, VIRGIN ACTIVE

Shooting with Jenny Pacey and Wayne Gordon again after almost 10 years since our Camden Sports Hall shoot. This time we were at one of London’s Premier Boxing Gym’s – BXR. Jenny Pacey was the amazon warrior cast trainer in the film Wonder Woman.

The shoot took place in the basement TRX Suspension Weight Training gym underneath the main boxing ring as the low purple LED lighting was the perfect backdrop for mixing in some photo-studio lighting. Using a couple of portable Profoto B1X’s on a measured low setting gave the perfect natural mixed lighting feel. Keeping the subject cleanly lit and the background atmospheric.

Mixing different light sources can be an art. This is typically mixing flash lighting with daylight like the Golf Punk magazine shoots in Spain. Or in a studio mixing continuous tungsten lighting with flash lighting like the adidas F50 campaign.

Client: Jenny Pacey & Wayne Gordon.

Location: BXR London.

This was a two year personal project producing a large body of work for social media and marketing purposes as a way of keeping friends, contacts and clients of big brands and small businesses interested in my work and new ideas I was producing.

Generally you get to shoot in some amazing places for clients and sometimes you want to go back to shoot some more. Or an athlete or models happens to train in a really slick location.

The brief I with my photography team was to create was to use these amazing sports training facilities all over London as the backdrops. The slicker the better. Using the strong graphic lines in the images as if they had been painted specifically for our photoshoot. The cleaner background shots seemed to work the best.

We worked closely with W Model Management and other athletes and models we’d worked with before.

The studio flash lighting set-up was nearly always a Profoto B1 Air with umbrella as a main light (left) and a second key light behind and further back on the right. Sometimes the second light had a Profoto grid on (honeycomb) it lessen the spill of the light. Gives you that contrast and strong shadow line down the centre. Especially if you can dial down or control the natural light.

As well getting me some great new work with Nike and Cadburys there was also some more lifestyle / fashion work with BMA Models as well.

See the online tutorial from the Vince Starr Photography youtube channel – “How to use studio flash lighting on location with natural light” below.

The first images were taken on the blue indoor running track, with the long and triple jump sand pit at Lee Valley athletics centre where I also shot the Cadburys Spot v Stripes campaign in the run up to the London 2012 olympic games.

The yoga poses was taken at Third Space Gym in Soho.

The tennis shot was taken Clapham Common tennis courts with the ball being thrown in after wards, which helps increase how many images you can take. Then the athlete can swing freely and concentrate on the pose and not be all out of shape if the ball is thrown in a different position each time.

The starting blocks running pose and high jump shot were taken at Tooting Bec athletics track. Climbing wall was at Mile End climbing wall. Outdoor runners stretch was in Streatham Park. The outdoor football was taken on a street pitch in Fulham. The squash shoot was with professional squash player Adrian Grant at England Squash and Racketball Club. The handball shots were taken at the Olympic Handball training centre in Dagenham.