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The charisma is definitely missing but I noticed in another aspect - the wai kru ram muay. Every fighter I'd watch in the 90's had their own cheeky take on it. While I still enjoy that it's done, it's missing that tiny element that made the ram muay isolated to an individual fighter.

These may or may not be in the same vein. My removal of color definitely is a bit different than the typical black and white we think of with noir. Still, I think the sport - as well as the country of Thailand! - lends itself well to noir photography.

I'm opening up a thread here to do some note taking and possible discussion on what I've termed Muay Noir, which is the engagement of Muay Thai photography, probably most explicitly Thailand Muay Thai photography (but I'm not sure), with the Film Noir aesthetic. My own photography has been heading in this direction (see some of that here: muaynoir.com), and it feels like the same direction is being taken up successfully by others in the field, enough to think that something very creative and important is going on here. There is an affinity between the Thailand Muay Thai subject matter, and the Film Nor, and neo-Noir aesthetics. This is some of my exploration of that, inviting others to think through this too. Reading a few essays on Film Noir this boils down some of the core elements of the genre, at least in the classic sense: Noir Universe existential crisis self-destructive compulsion alienation feminine betrayal sexual thrills cost fated endings universe of moral ambiguity good intentions produce bad results or, from the famous 1955 essay "Towards a Definition of Film Noir" by French critics Borde and Chaumeton, 5 adjectives: “oneiric, weird, erotic, ambivalent, and cruel” Noir Aesthetics low-key lighting claustrophobic framing shadows and reflections unbalanced composition great depth of field more on Film Noir aesthetics written on here. Some of my photos that have me thinking in this direction: Is there a fundamental concepts of alienation, a morally ambiguous universe, the role of the feminine (as betrayal or lure), the isolation of the subject aesthetically (use of lighting, composition), the psychologicalization of the subject (how faces and expressions seem to amplify in these aesthetics (thank you Instagram commenter, I've forgotten your name but not your excellent point!); and also the nostalgia brought on by the form, the old-timey, Old Hollywood theatricality (the throwback Noir film Raging Bull was mentioned by Dana Hoey in the context of this photo of mine), the rich sense of heroic, or articulate protagonist storymaking, how does this all fold together in creating both an artifice and a truth-telling? What does it mean to photograph the Muay Thai of Thailand as any of these things: “oneiric, weird, erotic, ambivalent, or cruel”

There is the pragmatic element of shooting fighting at all, which is that its usually low lighting with no flash allowed - that kind of begs for noir! I am not all that experienced with fight photography and I really enjoy yours, Kevin, and Walt yours too. The coolness factor is interesting (this is a general remark so pardon me for not quoting); it is interesting how it dovetails with hyper-elegant masculinity. In Woo films, the love story between Chow Yun Fat and his criminal adversary is this kind of elite level of masculinity, where one is not afraid to be "feminine" (big quotes there), insofar is one has love for another man. Most fighting exhibits that kind of dark love between opponents that the layperson does not understand, seeing only aggression unless they actually pay attention to the hug afterwards if it occurs. Sorry if I am going off-piste, but curious to read more about the coolness and charisma factor; is there a way to understand it as partially "female"? Does pink (e.g. pink shorts) have a feminine association in Thailand so that wearing pink gear exhibits the highest level of masculinity in taking the risk of being feminine? Love that Karuhat and Chatchai both mention it - both are remarkable stars. And what is charisma but a sense of one's own iconic nature? To be photogenic, to be glowing so that you never escape peoples' eyes or memories... this is quintessentially noir by your definition although there are other sorts of lines of thinking (beauty for one) that threaten to crowd into the discourse.

Dana Hoey, an artist who I've had some preliminary discussion with before posting this, added this great comment on the possibilities of Muay Noir, bringing up Hong Kong Noir which is also a powerful inspiration source. If I'm not mistaken, the glorification of the hitman (maybe apexing with Meville's Le Samouraï) had a significant impact on the cultural figure of the Nakleng (gangster) in Thai culture, as cited in the Peter Vail article above (nakbun). Hong Kong cinema has exactly the quotational aspect of the hyper-cool. That's a super important point in the Muay Thai of Thailand. There is always the sense that masculinity is being performed, and that the qualities are being embodied and acted out. In the history of Noir, from Bogart on, masculinity is stylized. I think that makes another good argument why the stylization of Noir photography fits with Muay Thai portrayals. It encases stylization withing stylization, making it at home. Does Noir complicate, or produce an inordinate layer between the viewer and the Muay Thai subject? Or, does it act as a prism to clarify and focus the eye on those effort at "cool". I remember listening to Karuhat Sor. Supawan, a legend of the Golden Age, and a fighter who embodied cool, talk with Chatchai Sasakul, a WBC Champion, and also a fighter of the Golden Age. He was complaining that the Thai fighters of today no longer have charisma. Charisma was an essential component of the great fighting portrayals of the 1990s in Thailand. For him, and Chatchai who agreed, it simply was missing from contemporary Thai fighting. So, in some sense, as we add the Noir layer to Muay Thai photography we may be capturing the last bit of starlight, a vital aspect of the art, that already has dimmed in Time.

So beautifully Noir. Figure isolated in a morally ambiguous environment, illuminated. Also, so Blade Runneresque. Love.

Thank you! It's amongst my favorites, also. I find it important to make sure I have a second camera with a long lens to capture the corner shots. Then there's this one from Pattaya. I genuinely have a sense of dumb luck to get a photo like this. Next will be my portrait series in the Everest region in Nepal to highlight the people in that area. That could definitely go into its own noir setting. It'lll be fun to play with.

Test Case This photo is perhaps the most "Noir" photo of all that I've taken, maybe in the sense of just it's purity of elements, its closely hewn simplicity of subject and aesthetic. Now, as an experiment contemplate these fists in the context of the proposed Noir Universe: existential crisis self-destructive compulsion alienation feminine betrayal sexual thrills cost fated endings universe of moral ambiguity good intentions produce bad results Notice how the depiction of the fists fits within a moral/ethical direction. The hero/anti-hero is there, isolated in the moral ambiguity, the hyper-masculinity floating the black, delineated by the light. We can play all sorts of games of projecting values or moral interest onto images, and perhaps at many times they will stick, but the rough conceptual framework of Muay Noir, in terms of Noir Theory, does fit seamlessly with the work. btw, I should note you can purchase prints of this photo here (with 50% of the profit going to Sagat, a legendary Muay Thai fighter of the Golden Age).

The Ambiguity of the Female in Noir There is an obvious connection point between Classic Film Noir and Tech Noir, in the figure of the female or the feminine. Classically, the Noir hero is threatened by the lure of the femme fatale, whose powers of attraction are magical ("Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic") and deadly. The femme fatale is a figure whose motives cannot be discerned, a character who operates by its own devices. This is modernized, or hyper-modernized in the figure of the fem-bot, an often highly sexualized version of femininity, who has powers that cannot be properly judged or anticipated, who operates with hidden motives and capabilities that cannot be resisted. They are one and the same figure brought forth in the two genres. The woman is "danger". This Muay Noir photowork by Emma Thomas really strikes me as powerful for any number of reasons, but first and foremost of which is how it captures the classic femme fatale sexuality in the context of training, without displacing it. She's mentioned to me that my own photography probably influenced her edits. There is a world of moral difficulty whenever inserting female sexuality in the male-coded Thai kaimuay, layers and threads everywhere. The traditional and the modernist projects collide, but this photo (go to the original posting here), for me, opens the door to the feminine figure that is buried in any Muay Noir juxtaposition. As a matter of sketching out the meaningful possibilities, what is the correlate to the female Noir figure in fighting? Who is the unpredictable, alluring, threatening, dangerous, surprisingly powerful, hyper-embodied "Other"? Clearly, the opponent. The feminine Other in fighting is all of the indiscernible, indecipherable qualities of your opponent. The cleanliness of technique, the unexpected powers, or motives, intentions, can rise to the android (mechanism / drives) in any of us. The automaton, is ultimately the thing that operates according it it's own laws [auto (self) nomy (law)]. Fighting, it might be argued, is the art of imposing your own law (rhythm, spacing, tempo), on the other. A completely, hermetically autonomous opponent would be, by logic, undefeatable (one of the fears of AI). Note: One of the most brilliant and subversive structural changes in the Tech Noir cannon is found in the Alita manga, where the subjective development of personhood unfolds in the figure of the female "bot", the locus of the usual projection of fantasy and fear. She starts out being given the literal body of a sex-worker (being discovered on a scrap heap, bodyless) by transplant, and passes through various bodies as vehicles and incarnations. This isn't to say that the figure of the female, if any, is found in a possible Muay Noir, necessarily. But it at least opens up that space for possible interpretation or inspiration. With my own subject matter including female Muay Thai, I find that within Muay Noir, and female fighter depictions there does lie the possibilities for syntheses or resolutions. For instance, as Dana Hoey hinted toward, there is something transcendent or transmuting about this photograph of the Thai female yodmuay Sawsing Sor. Sopit, between rounds, when put in the context of the femme or most Noir: It strikes me as a possible amalgam of the classic Noir pairing of the detective (fighter) and the girl (lure), the Brute and the Beauty:

To any sense of nostalgia - a return to the 1950s, which does have parallels in Thailand in that much or some of the country does feel anchored in a conservative or traditional past - must also be added the influence of what is often called Tech Noir, which could be oversimplified as "everything that flowed from Blade Runner". The unique and beautiful way that cyberpunk, Japanese anime futures and overall alien-ness became grounded in a backwards facing Noir world. Yes, replicants are running about, but a 1950s gumshoe detective is on the case. The combination of the future alienation, and throw-back aesthetics has a deep and satisfying history in our culture, and there is a sort of sci-fi, Blade Runner experience to many ex-pat realities in Thailand, though these seem quite far from Muay Thai depictions which already turn back up on the real. The Real. But, there is in that Tech Noir history a powerful sense of figure depiction that could play a role in what we could be looking for in Muay Noir meanings. I recent read through the Japanese manga Battle Angel Alita (1993) and its connective books, and was terribly struck by the force of its action depictions, the cleanliness of the lines (Noir contains excessive contrast, purifying the subject) as well as the emotionality of its characters while in action. It is a Tech Noir work of art. btw, you can buy the digital version of the Alita manga here, highly recommended. The Guided View, cell-by-cell presentation is very cinematic The possibilities of Muay Noir seem to reside in the confluence of these two aesthetic traditions. There is the classic evocation of Film Noir, with it's Raging Bull-like call back to a time of clarity and figure bas-relief, perhaps set against a morally ambiguous Universe, and there is the Tech Noir negotiation with the future itself, and the entire history of action depictions in manga and anime, with explicit action captures through bold lines/outlines, and intensified character states. Between these two shores: the evocation of the very old and classic, and the hypermodernity of the figure alone in space, lies the territory of Muay Noir, perhaps.

I agree, the lighting sometimes provides great contrast and figure cut-outs. Plus some of the images we have inherited from boxing's past have that same figure cut-out that feels very Noir. Again, we have the hero, cut out/off from the world, illuminated by light.

Pink is definitely not a female color, at least not traditionally in the sense that we read it, boy/girl, but maybe it has some sense of flair. The Muay Femeu panache of elite starts like Samart, Karuhat and other very artful type fighters does carry with it I think some sense of the feminine, but maybe in the way that the artist, or the aristocrat has feminine overtones. With some elements of hyper-masculinity you can get transgressions into the feminine, for instance Hair Metal rock bands with scarves and mascara. I think the sense is that "I have so much masculinity, I have plenty to spare, and I'm not emasculated by these markers. The great, artful Muay Femeu masters of the age had something of that, like the singer or the movie star (as Samart was all 3). But, I'm not sure how much of that fits into Noir. I mean, Bogart definitely is counter-punctual to femininity in almost every way. Maybe as Noir became quotational we get closer to concepts of "cool" and its enactment, which then brings us more in the real of actress, pushed to the extreme maybe the masculinity of K-Pop boy bands? John Woo's intimacy between men, maybe there is something subversive to the Classic Noir structure, the way that opponents mirror and complete each other. It maybe partakes in that same sense that I had that the "opponent" holds the role of the femme fatale in the Noir universe. The alluring, and destructive other.

In a bizarre bit of Noir crossing, before director Martin Scorsese had produced his first hit, he approached Philip K. Dick for the rights to his Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, a year after it was published. Raging Bull would be made in 1980, Blade Runner in 1982. source Was he seeing Dick's work as a Noir film back in 1969? Godard had made the ground breaking Noir sci-fi film Alphaville in 1965. Trailer below:

Especially that 2nd one, which is one of my favorite photos of yours for me. I've commented before how that metal riveting and the texture of his face create such an amazing rhyme. I also find it interesting that Classic Noir used great depth of field, but neo-Noir uses shallow depth of field (often) to further enhance the separation (alienation?) of the subject. Your is a perfect example of that isolation.

Maybe it would be safe to say that what binds Classic Noir and Tech Noir is the morally ambiguous Universe (no clear heading or outcome (criminal underworld or the presence of evil in the former, the uncertain future and impact on technology in the later), AND the aesthetically/spatially isolated hero, or anti-hero, in such a universe, with an amplified focus on that tension. What does it mean for that matrix to be placed upon the Muay Thai of Thailand? The fighter in Thailand is a form of hyper-masculinity (for Thais: read Sylvie's Thai Masculinity: Postioning Nak Muay Between Monkhood and Nak Leng – Peter Vail.The fighter falls between the monk and the gangster. You can see this summation graphic: One can see how this positioning sits well within the Classic Film Noir framework. The ideological worlds overlap in several ways with the protagonists of Noir. The hyper-masculinity fits the Thai concept of the fighter. For westerners, who enjoy a kind of exoticization of Thai culture, or maybe even more importantly, a Blade Runner quality of experience in tourist center cities, one can see where Tech Noir elements comfortably might work to express, or negotiate that truth. We have a hyper-masculinity portrayed in a classic way, along with the accompanying alienation and allure of futuristic possibilities. At bottom it feels like we have an alienating, or at least delineating, morally ambiguous universe, supporting a hyper-masculinized protagonist narrative...a moral character cut out of space.

The seediness you're seeing in Pattaya is pretty well relegated to certain areas and is easy to avoid. Outside of the "red light district" areas, it's actually got quite a small-town feel. But you need a motorbike, it's not a great walking city, and there's not tons to do in terms of tourism. So your wife and son could very easily be bored. There's quite a bit of English, but not as much as in the other areas on your list. That could be good or bad, depending on what you want. Chiang Mai is a walking/bicycle city for sure. Lots to do, lots of tour packages, lots of English, etc. Probably your best bet for a train-cation. It's less expensive than any other place on your list. I've never been to Phuket, but if your wife and son love beaches that seems good. It's expensive. Bangkok has tons to do in terms of visiting temples or shopping, good public transportation, and Attachai's is pretty central in terms of being on On Nut and near a BTS station. It's less expensive than Phuket, similar to Pattaya, I imagine. Motorbike taxis are cheaper in BKK than Pattaya.

I can speak to Petchrungruang from personal experience: You get 3 rounds on the pads, 4 minutes each with 1 minute rest in between rounds. Our trainers are all pretty different from each other, some are more instructive than others, but if you prefer more instruction you can always ask. When you're not on the pads, you're largely responsible for your own work. Shadow, bagwork and conditioning are on you; you will be called in and matched up for sparring and clinching. Clinching is every day, sparring is every-other day but if you want sparring just ask for a partner or find someone you want to work with. Mornings are more quiet, generally, but it's been pretty busy in November and I expect it will stay that way through December. Mornings are a run at 5AM and then you can do your own work directly after, or you can come back at 9AM and have pads and work with everyone who comes at that time. We do a bit of "group" drills and conditioning in the morning, like groups of 3 doing 100 kicks on the bag or whatever, but in the afternoon it's less structured. Not all of our trainers speak English, but some speak it quite well. Communication is still pretty good with those who don't speak English, they can explain technique physically and generally pinpoint what the problem is without a lot of verbal necessities. Thais and westerners all train together, there's no separation in the work we do. You'll be matched in clinch and sparring based on your size and level, so that might be with a Thai or might be with another westerner. It's a family-style gym, not fussy, not fancy, but we have good equipment and it's clean. Pattaya is a mixed bag. There are distractions if you go looking for them, but it's easy enough to avoid them. There is no on-sight accommodation, but you can find your own or go with the training/accommodation package at http://royalthairesidencepattaya.com/muay-thai , which is a 15 minute walk or 5 minute motorbike ride. I love this gym. It's my home, it's my heart. But it's not for everyone and I don't universally recommend it. If you need a lot of structure, not for you. If you work hard and listen, you'll be okay.

Hey everyone, I'm Gene. I'm from San Francisco, California. I've been studying Muay Thai for about 10 years, I've only done a handful of smokers. By the end of 2020 I hope to transition to amateur Muay Thai since my coach thinks I'll be ready with a couple more smokers. I'm looking to compete as much as possible before amateurs. I'm here to make friends and learn to become a better nak muay. I'm hoping to contribute to the community as well!