ABOUT

Concept: LKD Dojo in south west London came to me for photography for their website. They wanted something honest about who actually trains there: generations on the mat at the same time, women only classes, children finding their nerve. I had never photographed karate before and I went in not really knowing whether I was looking at a combat sport or at a dance. It is both, and the answer turned out to matter less than who was doing it.

Execution: I made studio portraits of black belt members in gi, alongside action frames. Karate is harder to photograph than it looks, because the moment that reads is not the moment of contact. A strike that has landed has already finished. What carries is the half second before it, where the weight has shifted and nothing has happened yet. So I work instinctively for that, watching a sequence two or three times before I raise the camera at all, so that I am shooting to a pattern rather than reacting to one.

Results: Brand photography for the club's own website: pictures that members recognise themselves in.