Ultrawide and Wide Lenses for Muay Thai Photography

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

Just some notes from today's casual shoot. I don't always photograph at Chatchai's (we go 2x a month), but it is a great opportunity to just experiment with aesthetics, or to change the way I see. 

Ultrawide & Wide for Muay Thai Photography

I've always been very drawn to wide lenses for Muay Thai photography, if only to get away from all the focus on "the action" and the proverbial sweat-spray shot. Mostly I've shot with longer lenses to get away from this moving in the opposite direction, to explore more the psychological aspects of fighting, and to locate what might be called sculptural body forms, but honestly, I've wanted much more to shoot in wider lenses, because I think the sense of space, of emptiness, is really what the art of fighting is about, like scuba diving is about what you do IN the ocean. Its harder to do in fights themselves because you don't have control over your setting and are locked more or less into one or only a few vantage points.

I've been lately interested in the Contax 645 35mm lens (27mm full frame), (above), adapted for the GFX system, in part because it seems to give that "what the eye sees" kind of field of view, something that I find in many of the beautiful films of the 1960s, and some early documentary photography. You can see a short article on the lens that attracted me. I want a little more of that tableau feeling, with some beautiful sample shots. I love this sort of photography, and I'd like to bring that nobility to Muay Thai. What I'm interested in with this Contax lens is that many times I encounter situational muay, often with older fighters, scenes that are full of details and composition, that it just feels like it has to all be captured, rendered, brought forward.

With that in mind I went back to my Fujifilm 8-16mm (12-24mm ff), above, which I really forget how much I love, a wide angle zoom on the X-series cameras that is underrated in the images it can pull. I have shot some very memorable photos with it. Today I shot Sylvie training with Chatchai at his Thai Payak gym in Bangkok just to get reacquainted with the wider view. I want to get used to seeing-in-wide again. You can maybe see what I see even in these somewhat casual shots, the way that the space envelopes the figures, and the figures almost arise from it. Note. I'm not a super technical photographer, and not really a gear person. I see things I like in my mind, my hands, and then look for ways to achieve it. I do like the 8-16mm, and its zoom is really very helpful in muay settings where you cannot change your position easily to alter the composition. With ultrawide this is really important especially regarding the distortion, not only how much distortion there is, but what it is that is distorted. The zoom is super valuable.

photos on this thread are unfortunately compressed and lose sharpness.

 

 

I'm hoping to see more wide angle and even ultra wide treatment of the sport, because the art is really all about the spaces that hold it. And I've ordered the Contax lens and the adapter, the first time I'll have shot with a vintage lens. I'm very excited to see what will show up on the very large and detailed GFX files.

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

I shot close to the floor as is often suggested on ultrawide, and I've had very dramatic shots from below with the lens in the past, but honestly I prefer the straight on tableau effect. Though, one of the benefits of being low is that architectural elements can really pop an give that Escher like effect (like here). I do like these photos, a lot, but I'm drawn to the wide lens I think much more in terms of that tableau 1960s cinema effect.

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

What's nice is that the lens distortion which sometimes might be seen as a drawback can actually bring forth the actual form of strikes and movements, extending lines and speaking the truth about the moment in a way that a visually "accurate" lens would not, as in this shot where the wide stance, and the rotation coming out up from the floor has a kind of lyrical quality. You can see the communication through lines of force.

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

And at 8mm (12mm) you can get some almost operatic shots, like this one where she is practically coming out of the ground, an illusion that is pulled out of all those ceiling spaces, the lens distortion, creating almost a vertigo of isolated figure movement.

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

And here dramatic action, Chatchai instructing with his inimitable simplicity of directional force, a Socrates of movement...

 

 

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

Here some of the drama and architectural effects, an elephant from the other day, on the very nice and simple Laowa 10mm (15mm ff) f/4 Ultra Wide.

 

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

Low resolution copies of two ultrawide photos of the great Sawsing in the past, capturing that drama. These both look like they were at 8mm (12mm ff).

 

 

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

Here the isolation and luminosity of the figures. Giving a psychology of study.

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

This photo accomplishes something, a focus, that is quite hard to achieve outside of ultrawide. You need the rest of the world, the gym world as a space to indicate how this very small thing is the focus. It's the contrast. You can miss the pointing finger, and that's the point. The feet are so much of the key to effective movement, which is key to effective striking & fighting. You don't want the finger to be the "point" of the photo, but rather its after-point, which communicates a wide (sic) range of relationships the information and the gesture.

Not only the case in teaching, in Muay if the eye is very close and selective, one can frame very important details of a moment in a great complex of composition.

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

You get some of this in the somewhat wide shot of Ali's famous "What's My Name?" photo vs Ernie Terrell (1967). You need the rest of the "world" to feel the meaning of this moment. You need the composition including the white faces of photographers, you need the darkness of the crowd. The eye does go immediately to his asserting face, but it also swims around, settling on the prone opponent.

It's hard to get these kinds of shots (and this one is once in a 100 years). But cameras in the day forced a development of compositional focus. Thinking and seeing in wide requires using wide.

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

18 hours ago, Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu said:

And at 8mm (12mm) you can get some almost operatic shots, like this one where she is practically coming out of the ground, an illusion that is pulled out of all those ceiling spaces, the lens distortion, creating almost a vertigo of isolated figure movement.

 

Some of this upward, drifting weightlessness in the photo above, the way that a training fighter is caught up in the vacuum of a gym itself, isolated as a figure, place somewhat to the way that Kubrick isolated the human figure in Space in 2001. There is some play there, with the ultrawide.

 

 

[dtrick924]

On 2/7/2025 at 3:28 AM, Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu said:

I love the way Syvie looks like a towering giant.

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

Some beautiful examples from the Contax 645, from Rambaa's festival card this week, where you can feel both the space AND the details, more than I even intuited. This to my eye is very close to a "natural" view, with just a little artifice to give it that oneiric feeling, which is related to my larger Noir sensibilities.

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

more on Noir aesthetics...