TSMMA

I've always wanted to get into fight photography, so I jumped at the opportunity.

I've been training MMA for about the past 2 years - I love it. It is one of the best workouts around, a great sport to follow, and also an excellent skillset to have for life in general. I recently had the opportunity to shoot one of my buddies who was preparing for a fight this past summer. I've always wanted to get into fight photography, and combining two passions of mine seemed like it would be a lot of fun, so I jumped at the opportunity.

Shots without Flash

When I arrived at the gym, I asked the athlete to begin warming up. I wanted him to work up a bit of a sweat by the end of the shoot to make the pictures look more authentic - while he was working the bag, I prepared my gear, and started shooting a few minutes into his workout. I initially shoot without a flash to see what I could get from the room lighting.

With a relatively low ISO, I was able to get the shutter speed down low enough to freeze some action, and captured the feel of the actual lighting in the gym. I used both a mid-range zoom and a wide angle for some different angles.

Shots with Flash

I would however, later move on to using flash for more dramatic flair in the shots. With the flash I was able to lower my ISO to get cleaner images, raise the f-stop to get some crispy detail, and also lower the shutter speed to freeze more of the action.

With the flash I was able to lower my ISO to get cleaner images, raise the f-stop to get some crispy detail.

Bringing the flash close to the subject also allowed me to darken the background, making for more dramatic lighting in the shot, which lended itself well to the subject matter.

Portraits

I wanted to set up and break down quickly.

We also worked on to some portrait shots - the goal was to keep the setup quick and simple, since I needed to work around other people who were also working out at the gym. I wanted to set up and break down quickly.

Basic setup for this shoot - one flash with a light box on a stand, and another stand with a reflector

The setup for this shoot was one small softbox a stand, and another stand with a reflector to bounce the light back on the opposite end. I held the camera and shot freehand, as I wanted to be flexible with what the athlete was doing in the shots.

We captured a few angles that the fighter would be able to use in fight promotions, social media, etc. The important thing here for me was to capture a lot of gritty detail in the shots, so I used a high f-stop, using a high powered flash to control the background and completely black it out.

I had an awesome time with this shoot - and we were able to get it all done in ~1 hour (not counting editing) after work on a weekday. We did a little planning ahead of time to discuss what types of shots the athlete was looking for, and we had a focused session which turned out to be a lot of fun. Hoping to shoot a fight sometime in the near future!