BJJ | Personal Work

Written by Gareth Iwan Jones
A long-exposure photograph of two Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioners grappling on a dark mat, their movements blurred to create a sense of fluidity and motion. Dramatic blue and purple lighting illuminates the athletes against a black background.

Some recent work from the personal projects folder.

Despite what can often appear to be quite brutal exchanges,
there's an elegance to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. The constant movement and counter-movement gives it a dance-like quality. Much like dancing, I've never taken it up myself but having married into a martial arts-loving family, I've developed quite an appreciation for it.

I'd also seen some wonderful paintings by @FredricaIntrone a while back, which got me thinking about experimenting with longer exposures and shooting BJJ in the dark.

I managed to spend some time photographing a few of the coaching team at @basegrappleclub. I wanted to find a way of capturing the movement and physical interaction without losing the detail and precision of the grappling. Longer exposures offered an interesting way of achieving this, with the two bodies occasionally becoming almost indistinguishable. Experimenting with different shutter speeds produced some surprisingly varied results.

With thanks to the absolute beasts davegarrett.uk & sean.overton for giving me their time and indulging me with this little experiment.

A long-exposure photograph of two Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioners grappling on a dark mat, their movements blurred to create a sense of fluidity and motion. Dramatic blue and purple lighting illuminates the athletes against a black background.
A long-exposure photograph of two Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioners grappling on a dark mat, their movements blurred to create a sense of fluidity and motion. Dramatic blue and purple lighting illuminates the athletes on a black background.
Gareth Iwan Jones

http://www.garethiwanjones.com
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