PRIORY PARK BOXING CLUB, located in the heart of the Black Country, Great Britain. I started photographing Priory Park Boxing Club back in 2020; the club would be the first place I would conduct professional work with a client on a regular basis. Over a time I would take photos and capture video on a weekly basis throughout the summer of that year; creating content for the club. Priory Park Boxing helped me get to where I am today. The gym were the first people to give me a chance with photography, and really believe in me and my work.

In some ways I owe them an unpayable debt, in my former years when I could have called it a day and put the camera back in a box, Priory always pushed me with assignments and projects within the gym. I would eventually use Priory as the basis for my final projects at university, these final assignments would result in great success. I feel my close relationship with the all the Boxers and Coaches really helped push me in this.

THE BEGINNING

Kelsey would be in lots of my original work, from original promotions where she would be sparring the Male boxers, and featured throughout numerous photos at my beginning at Priory Park Boxing. This would all be before her time on England Boxing and her eventual accomplishment getting into Team GB. I was approached by the head coach Paul Gough to create a small promotional video to advertise her success within female boxing, but over a time as her career evolved, so did the promotional video. It very quickly became apparent that with her achievements she would far more suit a documentary format, with the main goal of highlighting powerful females within boxing. This would be the start of a three year long journey, capturing a vast catalogue of material, from photos to video, interviews, combining it all to create the Behind the Gloves documentary.

KELSEY

We were always limited to how we filmed the documentary, there were always different factors that got in the way, the gym would be full, classes going on at all times of the day, to get the gym quite was a blessing. A rare sight that was almost impossible to come by. Kelsey would be in Sheffield throughout the week, Monday to Friday; so we had two days where we could capture footage. Saturday was a sparring day where we could capture behind the scenes footage and documentary B-roll, we had to do this while classes were on.

In the end we could only narrow it down to a one hour slot on a Sunday where the gym would be totally empty, there would be a gap between classes and one to ones, so we had to be precise in how we captured the documentary. This meant a lot of preparation with little time to execute, so we had to make it count. Every so often I would said to Kelsey spend time with your family. Spending the week away and being in the gym at weekends would never allow her to spend time with her family, I didn’t want to get in the way of that as family is really important.

Filming the documentary covers the span of three years, spending countless hours within the gym, capturing Kelseys training sessions. From groups, to sparring, strength and conditioning. Every time she would enter the gym, I would be there ready, and waiting. I was fortunate enough to spend a lot of one to one time with Kelsey during this process, getting to know who she was as a person.

Behind the gloves, through the tough exterior, there was a normal person, like the rest of us; but very much an underlying fire of the athlete. in some cases, Kelsey Oakley was a mask, and the athlete was the true personality throughout. An athlete that hungered for the fight, the challenge, and had an amazing time along the way. Learning about Kelsey’s journey and what makes her tick was extremely interesting, from being able to stand up to the male boxers and go toe to toe with them in the ring, and why she chose to become a boxier in the first place, to honour the memory of her grandad.

All these qualities Kelsey holds moulding her into the champion she is today, are really important, but we wanted to take it back to the beginning with this project.

From the moment she stepped into Priory Park Boxing Club. This concept we were all on board with, to show people she was not just an over night success, she didn’t even start with boxing, but what she did do, was eventually start. Something many people have trouble with is to take the first step.

THE DOCUMENTARY

While this project would be created for Kelseys journey and Priory Park Boxing club, I wanted Kelseys story as an athlete to push beyond these limits. Just like Kelsey has, pushed the limits and boundaries within the sports world. Her Story can be a beacon to those who think they aren’t good enough, or that something isn right for them, Kelsey is a light to tell people that they can do it. No matter the challenge, if you really put your all into something, even if the odds are stacked against you, just practice, live and breath what you love, and when the time is right, you can help change the status quo.

Boxing is and has always been a male dominated sport, if it wasn’t for the athletes like Kelsey, pushing to change the world of sport, the landscape how we see it now, would be a lot different. Less accessible to people all around the world, so even if these extra ordinary individuals don’t win in the ring, they win for everyone else, they win for the people who tare finding their voice, the people who are worried to start, the people who thought is wasn’t possible, these athletes fight in and out the ring, to make to possible. To make it Normal.

This is the true meaning of the documentary, you don’t need to be a certain person to box, you need to be yourself, only you can make waves when you truly put your mind to it, like Kelsey, a girl from an aer that is less fortunate, but the community means everything. Its for the people who come from nothing, that can value everything, once they get where they need to be.