OUR STORY
The project of the ladies cricket calendar started from an idea of gaining the attention of the Dutch public for our so beloved sport cricket. We are teammates in a ladies cricket team at the VRA Cricket Club in the Amsterdamse Bos. For years VRA has been hosting numerous international cricket games and the Dutch cricket team has been playing at international level. Around the world, cricket is played and loved by billions. It is strange to think that the second most played and watched sport in the world, is so unknown to the general public in the Netherlands.
When people think of cricket they think of bearded old men standing in a field and drinking tea all day. We want to change this rusty image, and shed a different light on the sport. Cricket is actually a game that requires insurance, focus, and explosive power. No matter what age, people who come in to contact with the sport, tend to fall in love with it.
Our main goal is to gain attention for the ladies branch of the sport. For years now we have been organising a ladies cricket day at our club in Amsterdam. Realising that too little people know what cricket is really about, we decided to come up with a more drastic idea. To gain attention for a small sport in a big way!
With the ladies cricket calendar we wanted to create a way for cricket, and ladies cricket especially, to become a topic of conversation. Hanging the calendar in your home is a way to show a love for both cricket and photography. In the Netherlands the cricket season starts in May, and to make it a little bit more cricket related, and to bridge the gap between the season and off-season, the first month of the calendar is May 2015.
Cricket is a sport that brings people together, that brings out the best in you. We want to convey and spread our love and passion for the sport. The calendar is our way of doing this. We hope you will enjoy the calendar as much as we enjoyed making it.
I am a photographer and have been fanatically playing cricket for years. I have had the idea of combining my passion for cricket and my profession for a long time now. What really struck me is that when you Google Search ‘Ladies cricket photographs’, all you really find is provocatively dressed women hugging wickets. I feel that this does not portray ladies cricket in a respectful and realistic manner.
What I wanted to create is an image of ladies cricket that is diverse and elegant. Therefore I decided to not use models, but my own teammates, to really show off the cricket lady in all her strength and power. I decided to shoot all the ladies in the nude, stripped from all distractions, to really put focus on the female body, the contours and muscle groups. With the use of light and different poses, I played with the composition and used the female body to create a vivid and abstract image. All forms of clothing would have been a distraction. And let’s be honest, cricket whites can be very practical if you are sliding towards a ball heading for the boundary, but they are not very attractive to photograph.
I feel that you can really see my passion for cricket and photography in the final product.
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Nathalie Hennis, Anne van Nierop and the VRA Cricket Ladies