Photographing Saracens Women:
A Black & White Series
The frame where women's rugby looked back at me
Photographing Saracens Women was a eureka moment. I had been making pictures of athletes for years, but this was the first time the women in front of my camera were the women I had always wanted to photograph. They owned who they were, what they did and what they represented, and they engaged with the lens in a way I hadn't seen before, not performing for it, not deflecting it, just meeting it.
I shot the series in black and white and worked close in: the lift at a lineout, boots braced in a scrum, the pack folded into a maul, the huddle before kick-off. Stripping out the colour took away the kit, the sponsors and the weather, and left the thing I was actually there for, the physical fact of the sport and the trust between the players. In every frame where they looked straight down the barrel, there was a raw authenticity I couldn't have directed.
It was a privilege to watch how they held each other up and pushed each other on, and stayed grounded doing it. This was never only about action. It was about representation, resilience and what women get back from sport. The final images were exhibited at the Kensington and Chelsea Art Show, and I came away photographing women's sport differently.
The same team appears in a very different register in this dawn rugby photoshoot with co-captain Lotte Clapp — colour, first light, one poster portrait and one scrum. More work like this in the sports photography portfolio and the Haringey Rhinos club story for The Rugby Journal, or get in touch about a shoot.