Boxers where they do not belong
Boxing and caves don't usually go together, and that was exactly the point. I wanted to do something different with boxers, so I hatched a plan to shoot a boxing story deep underground.
The first step was finding the fighters. I reached out to my friends at Boxwerk gym in Munich and was very lucky to get to work with professional boxer Kakende Muzamiru and boxer Parzival Rau von Nagell. To bring the period look to life, stylist Sarah Kaldewey put together some very cool Peaky Blinders inspired outfits, all on very short notice.
With the team in place, I still needed a cave. That took some searching, but we finally found the Charlottenhöhle, an amazing cave in the Swabian Jura in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. At over 500 meters long, it's a maze of photo opportunities, with one particularly usable larger chamber that would become our main set.
Everything came together on a cold, foggy day in late October. As night approached, my crew and I hauled all the gear up the hill to the cave entrance, which was quite a task in itself. Then the headlamps came out and we headed into the darkness, with water dripping from the stalactites on the cave roof above us.
Behind the scenes: the light
Once inside, the first challenge was power. The cave had mains electricity, but only in one or two spots. So as we moved through the cave, I switched the broncolor Satos 3200 between being plugged in and running on battery. Either way, the Satos delivered the same blazingly quick performance, so I never had to think twice about where we set up.
For the opening shot, I wanted to really show off the cave in a wide frame. I set up one Pulso L head from the Satos in the broncolor Octabox 150 with light grid as my main light, and a second Pulso L head with a standard reflector as a kicker to separate the boxers from the dark background.
Then it was time for action. For a dynamic start, I had Kakende throw a jumping punch towards Parzival. The Satos's fast recycling time between flashes meant I could keep shooting as he flew through the air and capture the perfect moment as the action unfolded. It's exactly the kind of moment where you only get so many attempts before the energy drops, so having that speed made all the difference.
Portraits in the dark
From there, we slowed things down with a series of portraits and posed shots. Here the Octabox 150 proved the perfect tool, with its light grid bringing out all the detail in the boxers and their styling while keeping light from spilling onto the cave walls. The result was a dark, moody background that let the subjects stand out. These quieter frames were also where Sarah's styling really had a chance to shine.
By the time we packed up and made our way back out into the late night fog, we had just the story I'd imagined. A huge thank you to my amazing team for coming together to make these images possible!
The team behind Cave Boxing
- Photographer: Ray Demski
- Boxers: Kakende Muzamiru, Parzival Rau von Nagell
- Styling: Sarah Kaldewey
- Photo assistant: Noah Broger
- Behind the scenes: Jan Eric Euler
- Production: Selina Lettenbichler, Jasmine Ellis
- Props: Nick Trachte, Boxwerk Munich
