NLPT is a personal training studio in Nunspeet, with a second floor in Elburg. Sessions run half an hour, one to one or in small groups, and a trainer is on every one of them - the whole proposition is that you’re never left to work it out by yourself. They asked for a set of photographs and film that showed the trainers and the room they work in.
A small gym is a hard thing to photograph. Shot plainly it becomes an equipment catalogue: racks, bags, floor, nobody in it. What makes the place worth joining isn’t the kit. It’s the effort, and the person standing next to you while you make it.
I shot it dark, lighting the people and letting the room fall away behind them. Everything was made at the top of the effort - the kick landing, the strap at full stretch, the punch connecting - so the frames carry the energy of the session rather than a posed version of it. The trainer is in almost every shot, spotting, bracing a pad, holding the bag. Alongside the stills we shot film, so the same treatment carried into motion.
I like these a lot. They show the gym the way it actually feels to train in.
Dennis, Trainer, NLPT
Every frame has two people in it: the one doing the work, and the one making sure it’s done right. That’s the whole proposition of the place.
