"Women with fists": Kickboxers after the fight

EVERY DAY PHOTOGRAPHERS AROUND THE WORLD looking for new ways to tell stories or to capture what we previously did not notice. We choose interesting photo projects and ask their authors what they wanted to say. This week - the series "Female Fighters" by British photographer Amelia Schaefer, who photographed more than 20 kickboxers and thus tried to show the other side of women's life.

"Kickboxing allowed me to figure out what hurts and what helps in life. Not one thing had such a gigantic positive effect on my adult life. "

Odil, kickboxer

Initially, my idea was to remove portraits of women who are engaged in kickboxing, immediately after the sparring. I wanted to catch their living, deep energy and show the audience the other side of women's life, different from the one we all used to watch daily. Participants in the project "Female Fighters" became fighters from the British Brighton and its environs. The girls in the pictures look directly into the camera, which makes it seem as if they need attention. I photographed the heroines, rejecting any attempt at sexualization, and eventually caught the purity of their emotions and the very essence of the peace achieved through the ability to control their aggression. The result of the shooting turned out exactly as planned, although usually the original concept undergoes changes in one way or another.

Photography is my tool with which I, on the one hand, explore how people are portrayed in mainstream media, and on the other, I try to give a more truthful picture of what is happening. Up to 30 years, I traveled a lot and always tried to somehow fix all the interesting things that I see around. This was my way of understanding the world and expressing myself. Later, I received a bachelor of arts degree, and then a master's degree, continuing to work in the tourism industry. But in 2010, I gradually went into photography and since then I have been building a career in this area, at the same time engaging in commercial surveys and personal projects.

I turned my attention to female fighters because it is interesting for me to explore stereotypes associated with women and their roles in society. In addition to portraits, the project "Female Fighters" includes interviews with each of the girls. In order to additionally provoke viewers to talk, or at least reflections on the stereotype of the female world, we placed pictures of the heroines in "inappropriate" places for this - near the lingerie store or opposite the nightclub.