Liz Clarke-Saul: Paracyclist Turned Swimmer
Sports Portrait Photography in Richmond Park, London
Liz Clarke-Saul is a Team GB paracyclist and an advocate for rare bone cancer research, and one of the people I have most wanted to photograph honestly rather than heroically. We began in Richmond Park, her chosen training ground, on a cold autumn morning, working around her rather than the other way round. There was no staging and no forcing the moment, just Liz on the bike, in her element, where movement gave her freedom and purpose. The pictures from that day carry her power, her focus and her sheer presence on the road.
As her condition progressed and cycling became impossible, Liz turned to swimming, and I went back to keep documenting that part of her journey rather than treating the story as finished at the roadside. The pool portraits are softer and more intimate than the cycling images, shot close and low over the water so the change in her physical world reads honestly rather than as a coda. I do not believe in picture perfect. I believe in truth told beautifully, and in showing what sport gives back to the people who live it. That willingness to keep following an athlete's story past the point where the original brief ends is what separates documentary sports photography from a single day's coverage.
This portrait sits within Karen's wider Sport portfolio, alongside Kate Beardmore's fencing story, another portrait built around what strength in sport actually looks like. For commercial and editorial commissions in sport, see Commissions.
If you are working on a story about resilience, identity or adaptive sport, I would love to talk about how we could tell it.