The Old One Two

A few years ago, one of my friends sent me a video clip of NYC underground boxing on YouTube. I had a very guttural reaction to the video and immediately wanted to go check it out for myself. I was immediately drawn to the spectacle of the fights. The uncertainty of the new environment sparked a curiosity in me and I started to go back fight after fight, wanting to convey what I considered to be the true essence of the underground scene: the rush, the sound and the chaotic feel. When I started this work, it was neither freelance nor work for a client, rather a personal start on a new body of documentary work. Encapsulating not just the fight itself, but the emotion of the spectators, the grit of the environment and the sensory overload of the situation- I didn’t want aesthetically to convey the matter-of-fact, clean, pristine boxing images you usually see. I wanted to get something that was transient, something more abstract, rather than the “decisive moment.” In each photograph, I want the viewer to feel a sense of what I felt while I was shooting. My relationship to my camera, my subjects, how in or out of focus the picture is as well as the framing, all depend on my levels of intimacy, fervency and comfort with the situation. There is a direct correlation to the images outcome.