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The Graphic Novel - Comic Book Approach to Muay Thai Photography - Pap Photography

Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu
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Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu

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There is a very prolific Muay Thai photographer who happens to be Thai, who has produced a very graphic effect with popping, electric colors, high definition pop, and lots of that Sweat Spay look catching dynamic moments of a fight. Here is a few squares from his instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/pap_muay_thai/

photo.png.a486119f5c10927cd8db5b1f0cf50fc3.png

1776901014_papphotography.png.a21ceaa6bae49cf0fb230bf565ceec58.png

 

This isn't the only style he shoots in, but for fight photography he has really pushed and explored this look. Just scrolling through his feed you can see it develop subtly, which is cool. You get that graphic novel ripping muscle thing, truly luminant figures against black backgrounds. In general I really resist the Sweat Spray look, mostly because it hides all the deeper emotions and efforts in what fighting is all about. And because it tends to be produced by machine gunning the shutter and then just picking out the best "moment" (which in itself is a process, but not something that feels good to me). That being said, it is very difficult to shoot fights. You are usually locked into only one or two positions on the ring, and its hard to get expressiveness to action. Moving toward comic book cell aesthetics has its advantages, and going in that direction his look is pretty cool. I include this here because it occupies a space on the aesthetic spectrum of what fighting is, and how to communicate it. That it is coming out of a Thai sensibility in the history of aesthetics makes it all the more interesting.

 

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    • Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu
      Entertainment Muay Thai isn't really like Warfare at all

      By Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu · Posted

      Speculatively, it seems likely that the real "warfare roots" of ring Muay Thai goes back to all the downtime during siege encampment, (and peacetime) Ayutthaya's across the river outer quarters. One of the earliest historical accounts of Siamese ring fighting is of the "Tiger King" disguising himself and participating in plebeian ring fighting. This is not "warfare fighting" and goes back several hundred years. One can imagine that such fighting would share some fighting principles with what occurred on the battlefield, but as it was unarmed and likely a gambling driven sport it - at least to me - likely seems like it has had its very own lineage of development. Less was the case that people were bringing battlefield lessons into the ring, and more that gambled on fighting skills developed ring-to-ring. In such cases of course, developing balance and defensive prowess would be important.  Incidentally, any such Ayutthaya ring-to-ring developments hold the historical potential for lots of cross-pollination from other fighting arts, as Ayutthaya maintained huge mercenary forces, not only from Malaysia and the cusp of islands, but even an entire Japanese quarter, not to mention a strong commercially minded Chinese presence. These may have been years of truly "mixing" fighting arts in the gambling rings of the city (it is unknown just how separatist each culture was in this melting pot, perhaps each kept to their own in ring fighting).
    • Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu
      Entertainment Muay Thai isn't really like Warfare at all

      By Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu · Posted

      For anyone who follows my writings I do not argue for any sense of a "pure" Muay Thai, or even Siamese fighting art history. Quite different than such I take one of Siam and Thai strengths is just how integrative they have been over centuries of development (while, importantly, preserving its core identity). For instance Western Boxing has had a powerful influence upon the form and development of Muay Thai for well over 100 years, and helped make it perhaps the premiere ring fighting art in the world, but Western Boxing itself was a very deep, complexly developed art which mapped quite well upon traditional Muay Thai in many areas, allowing it to flourish. This is quite different than the de-skilling that is happening in the sport right now, where instead the sport is being turned towards a less-skilled development, for really commercial reasons.  The story of whether the influx of attention, branding, not to mention the very important monetary investment that Entertainment Muay Thai has brought will actually help "save" traditional Muay Thai is yet to be written. It very well might, as the sport was reaching some important demographic and cultural dead-ends, and it needed an infusion. But, let's not have it be lost, what itself is being lost, which is the actual very high level of skill Thailand had produced...and how it had developed it. Let's keep our eye on the de-skilling.
    • Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu
      Entertainment Muay Thai isn't really like Warfare at all

      By Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu · Posted

      One of the more slippery aspects of this change is that in its more extreme versions Entertainment Muay Thai was a redesign to actually produce Western (and other non-Thai) winners. It involved de-skilling the Thai sport simply because Thais were just too good at the more complex things. Yes, it was meant to appeal to International eyes, both in the crowd (tourist shows) and on streams, but the satisfying international element was actually Western (often White) winners of fights, and ultimately championship belts. The de-skilling of the sport and art was about tipping the playing field hard (involving also weigh-in changes that would favor larger bodied international fighters). Thais had to learn - and still have to learn - how to fight like the less skilled Westerners (and others). In some sense its a crazy, upside-down presentation of foreign "superiority", yes driven by hyper Capitalism and digital entertainment, but also one which harkens back to Colonialism where the Western power teaches the "native" "how its really done", and is assumed to just be superior in Nature. The point of fact is that Thais have been arguably the best combat sport fighters in the world over the last 50 years, and it is not without irony that the form of their skill degradation is sometimes framed as a return to Siam/Thai warfare roots. It's not. Its a simplification of ring fighting for the purpose of international appeal. 

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