When I fought on this promotion, there was no official photographer! Well I guess I'm the one to blame for that as I had been working at their last few shows and then decided to jump in.
It might not seem like a big deal at the time of the fight, it'll start to suck when you're thinking back about the fight but don't have any decent photos and all you have is a shaky video. I think a photograph captures a particular feeling at that moment and reignites when you look at it. It also provides some perspective on how others might have perceived your fight that you might have missed during the video.
When you're watching a fight video, you're overloaded with so much footage that you don't seem to appreciate much (except those 10second KO videos!). A good photographer is very precise and selective with the images they capture and show. They should be able to accurately convey the major sequence of events in a captivating way without boring the audience with repetition and dullness.
I was lucky to have my friend/training partner Phivo come down just to watch my fight and photograph me (I photographed his one about 8 months back). I found myself to be quite aware of him and the camera as I was warming up. I kept wondering how are they turning out because I had troubles getting my settings right at this venue. It was a little weird for me to pose as Im not a big fan of those chessy boxing poses people do but they actually turned out well! It took me a while to mentally 'switch on' for the fight and forget that he was there (also could have been that it was freezing).
Today when I'm shooting backstage, I have all these old thoughts run through my mind. It helps me understand my distance/range as I don't fighters to know I'm taking their backstage photos. I try to capture the most authentic expression and sometimes I achieve this by being subtle or pretending to do something else when I quickly snap the shot.
Photo by - Phivo Christodoulou
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