My daughter Mia has always been super strong, I remember when she was three I lifted her up onto a pull-up bar at a friends house, where she immediately commenced with pull-ups at a rate which astonished us all! Raised eyebrows and side-ways glances all round!
She’s always been super active and sporty, prior to power lifting she was an accomplished runner, but a pulled muscle had her enter the gym looking for some other sport to throw her energy at. She got in with the power lifters and very early on was impressing them, within months she’d been taken on by a personal trainer (that would be Kim in the photos) On the 10th October 2015 she entered the ‘Jyske Mestreskaber ‘ Danish National Championships in Videbæk, where she attained the National record in her class for Bench-Press with 65kg, Squat with 117.5 kg and the World Record for the Dead-lift with 157.5 kg! ….and all at the tender age of 17!
This series of images were taken shortly after, at the gym where she trains in Aalborg, Denmark, with her trainer Kim of Big Bench
The cameraman is from the National TV company TV2, the second TV station to feature her.
The photographs were shot with a Canon 5Dmk2 with the Sigma 35mm f1.4. All the shots were at f1.4, partly for the minimal depth of field it allows, but also because the gym was very dimly lit indeed, and even at iso 400, f1.4 only allowed for a shutter speed of around 60-80th sec.
I am extremely fond of the perspective afforded by a 35mm lens, it’s pretty close to that of the human eye and subsequently has a very natural feel to the images it captures. I also find the angle of view is perfect for scenes involving people, when you want to be close enough for the resultant images to feel personal and involved.
The Sigma Art Series 35mm f1.4 is seemingly about the best 35mm optic available for DSLR’s, and in tests appears to out perform both Canon’s and Nikon’s pro equivalents, in terms of image quality – sharpness, contrast, colour reproduction & distortion. What it really is good at is being sharp wide open at f1.4, it was designed to be such, and beats the competition here hands down… And hey, after-all, why bother designing a lens with such a wide aperture if it isn’t sharp at such (though Canon & Nikon seem to think that’s acceptable!).
[su_box title=”Robert Irving” box_color=”#0e6107″ radius=”1″]
Robert Irving is a commercial photographer and co-founder of World Photo Adventure with a passion for travel and adventure.
Rob’s web site: Robert Irving[/su_box]
