sylviemuay

Hi-Res Muay Thai Photo of the Month - A Serious Photographic Upgrade (Patreon)

Published:

2019-01-03 05:22:41

Edited:

2019-01-21 03:54:24

Imported:

2021-08

Content

Kevin writing: Several have been asking, so I'll be posting downloadable hi-res versions of photographs I'll be taking, that can be made into HQ, frameable prints, used as wall-papers or printed into posters. They'll try to capture some of the depth of what Sylvie is doing, as well, all of what we are doing supported through Patreon support.

With your support we've been able to get a serious, serious photographic upgrade. Previous to this most of our photos and video had been shot with the serviceable Sony Cybershot RX100M3, with little to no additional quality editing. It was a very handy camera, and highly recommended, but its short comings did make Muay Thai Library video difficult at times. We got an external directional Rode Mic to help improve the sound, but that ended up putting more time into the video edits, syncing etc. and the photographic quality was not pushing us toward richer or more expressive modes of capture.

So we took a big leap and made a big purchase because we realize just how precious all this time and content is. Sylvie's walking with legends, filming with legends, and herself as a fighter pushing to incredible achievements which deserve a bigger, more complete keyhole.

A few months ago we had family bring over the new Fujifilm's X-T3, probably the primer cropped sensor camera available, and I began shooting with its surprisingly high quality kit 18-55mm lens. I was pretty much stunned at the results. I had love for photography when I was a teen, and practically dream in cinema my entire life, but I had never really imagined that stunning images were going to be coming out of my shutter-finger. But there it was. Some combination of synergy of the camera's rich and detailed output, it's design, and my latent passion for image just locked into place. We wanted to elevate the record of what was happening around us, and give patrons a bird's-eye-view into the powerful things they are helping bring about, and suddenly it seemed possible. This investment into very high quality was the right direction. I could feel it. We had to raise the quality of what were were doing if we were going to have the impact on really the history of Muay Thai, as we are attempting to have.

you can follow my photo journalism of what is happening on Instagram

The next step was an even greater leap of faith, and honestly made possible, imaginable through our Patreon support. As an artist - because that was what I was becoming in an unexpected fashion - I could just feel restricted by the frame of the photos I was taking. And that as my lens stretched down to 16mm, I could feel that restriction ease. I was simultaneously struck by how so much of fight photography was stagnant, full of confined frozen physical moments, or strong, boxed facializations. This was far from the living spaces of training and fighting. I could feel that a wider lens was closer to the truth of what fighting is. Fighting is always about spaces, moving through and controlling or harnessing spaces. I spoke about this on Instagram, there was a new kind of fight photography that was possible. An entire largely unexplored continent of ultra wide-angle photo space. So we went for it and got a new lens to open up those spaces: Fujifilm XF 8-16 mm F/2.8 R LM WR. You can see me, the X-T3 and the 8-16 above. I like to stay hidden in the story of Sylvie and what we are doing, but I think it's important to talk about and share this dimension, and the camera. I'm not quite sure how I consider myself in terms of being an artist or a photographer, but what I will say is that I'm attempting to ascend to the lens, pay respect to the equipment, in the effort and the vision I'm bringing to what it is capable of. And this is what Patreon support is allowing to happen, and you should be a part of this too.

The Photo of the Month

So the photo of the month is this one below. I add two others as well. They not only reflect the Muay Thai Library - Preserve The Legacy project, they also tell the artistic story of the lens and camera. Even if you don't want to print a photo, or make it wall paper open up the download just to see the rich quality of the images. We live in a compressed image world, and Instagram hides and chops much of what is recorded and lived. These higher resolution versions give a peak into other textures and qualities of moments.

Karuhat Meets Yodkhunpon - Batman Meets Wolverine

download the hi-res (5693 x 4160) version here

This is just incredible. Through the powers of Patreon Sylvie put together the Women's Muay Khao Summit, an apex event in which legends of the sport from the Golden Age of fighting came together to pass on in-depth knowledge of Muay Khao fighting to passionate women from all over the world (there will be a 10 hour edit of the event available for sale to the public, the net profits of which will go to the legends and female Thai champions). What this meant in practical terms was that luminary names in Muay Thai were going to descend into the humble Thai family gym of Petchrungruang in Pattaya. It's like having legendary movie stars all come and hang out at your house. The beautiful absurdity of this was perhaps no better captured than in this photo, where the two famed elbow fighters of the Golden Age, Yodkhunpon and Karuhat, meet for the first time ever. There is more than that here. They are both quiet, almost shy at the surface men, reserved and guarded. And they both have had a huge impact on Sylvie's path as a fighter and a person. Training sessions with both of them make a significant part of the Muay Thai Library project, as a patron you can watch their sessions here. As elbow fighters they are diametrically opposed in style. Karuhat personifies the artful cutting elbow, that finishes of other femeu flourishes, and leaves the opponent bleeding, like a swordsmen's panache flick of a rapier. He will not throw many in a fight, or even none at all, but his single elbows become memorable, and indeed famed. Yodkhupon rather filled his pressure, Muay Khao style brimming with elbows. Nobody really fought like him with them. He didn't care if 100 were blocked, one would get through, or they all would set up his much more dangerous knees. So, as these men stretch out to each other, the wide spectrum of elbow fighting in Thailand, the greatness of it closes in a bridge. Yodkhupon has lived a life where he has not really received the credit for his elbowing-style, in Thailand, because elbows are seen largely as artful or brutish (which is why fighters have made such a point of MAKING them artful), so seeing these two beautiful fighters meet like this, through the Summit, it's beautiful.

And the story would be incomplete if I didn't mention that out of all the things in the photo, the one that recedes is perhaps the most remarkable. Sylvie is there between them. This 100 lb western woman who has just thrown herself into the chasm of fighting and documenting, it is her, the most unlikely her, that is the invisible nexus point that makes this happen. These men meet because of her, in this unusual gym.

I think in this photo you can also feel the spirit of the wide-angle lens coming into life. As they stretch, the frame is stretching to include more. This is what the Wide Angle is about. You include more, you bend boundaries.

Yodkhunpon in the Cathedral

download the hi-res (6140 x 4160) version here

This one you really do want to download because there is so much tonality and detail captured. Yodkhunpon is teaching Sylvie footwork in his Gallop. The gym is otherwise empty and frames everything like a workspace cathedral. This is so much of what the Muay Thai Library is about. Being at the foot of masters, and capturing all the in-between moments, the quiet moments that truly happen in training. It's everything that is far beyond the demo highlight video. It's the silent hours of seeing and talking. This is after a session we had filmed for the Library. Yodkhunpon was still feeling what he was teaching in the last hours. Sylvie had climbed out of the ring, but he still wanted to impress it upon her. There was more to say. In life Yodkhupon lives next door in a small, cramped apartment row. He works in a bar refereeing show fights, or real fights between kids on the come up before they are ready to fight in stadia. None of the tourists there have a clue who he is, that he is probably the greatest elbow fighter Thailand has ever produced. He lives at the edge of society in the large sense. But between these ropes he's a prince. That is what we hope to preserve and communicate in our video sessions, the truth is that we are all at the feet of these beautiful, noble fighters.

It's pretty cool that like many of the legends and krus in the Preserve The Legacy project, now that others around the world have gotten a serious glimpse into the teaching of their individual style, Yodkhunpon is taking more and more private sessions as people come to Pattaya in order to train with him. This is one of the after effects of the Library that is happening all over Thailand.

This was shot at 16mm (cropped sensor) with the kit lens. You can feel how I want the frame to expand, to include more.

Kru Den and the Training Ring

you can download the hi-res (6140 x 4160) photo here

Here is maybe one of the biggest expressions of the 8mm 2.8 lens so far. It depicts Kru Den, who has been training the Rungruang family for over 30 years. He comes and trains the kids at the gym simply because he likes it. It's part of the flex of a family that is a kaimuay. It's really beyond words what is found here for me, as Kru Den hangs on the ropes attentively watching the world within them. The training ring at Petchrungruang is an enormous square, larger than any ring that you would ever fight in, and all the fighters and student get in there and mix. Every age, every skill level. It's like dumping fish into an aquarium, and letting them settle into life patterns. And coaches eyes are always on them. This photo somehow presents that incredible swirl of years and attention for me. I think in it you can feel where I am trying to go with Ultra Wide Muay Thai photography. We like to think of fighting as a singular sport, a man vs a man, intention vs intentions, but Muay Thai is a fabric, especially in Thailand. It's about lineages, and hierarchies, and lines of thought. It's about relations. This is what I'm trying to pull into my lens and now more aggressive edits.

So while this first post is public, future ones will be private shares of a Photo of the Month with patrons. I hope you enjoy the details in these photos, and that you come with me on my own artistic journey with this camera.

You can follow it all on Instagram

A Further Note About the 8-16 f/2.8 Lens - Where Are the Feet?!

Here is the X-T3 with the 8-16 2.8. One of the hopes of this lens, and the camera upgrade is to seriously improve the experience of patrons watching the Muay Thai Library sessions. The camera will allow super slow-motion captures of very high quality to really preserve elements of specific techniques that honestly would become lost to time. You can see this in the slo-mo I shot of Namkabuan's incredible Slide Knee I shot at the Summit. Please do watch the video if you haven't yet, it's remarkable footage. The X-T3 sensor and speed allows low-light capture at 120 frames per second, recording the fluidity of the movement. But it is the lens which allows a possible solution to a persistent request from patrons over the last year. Where are the feet?

People know that one of the most important aspects of understanding and duplicating a technique is to look to the feet. Because of technical and circumstantial limitations many of the techniques found in the Library do not show foot positions, simply because they are out of frame. A big reason why they are often out of frame is that as camera I'm standing in a ring, and I often simply can't back up far enough to get the full figure in frame. And secondary reason is that even if I could back up enough, my mic would not be in a position to capture what the kru or legend is saying in Thai. We purchased a Rode Mic maybe a year ago to improve the audio and filter out some of the background noises that are often in gyms, but the mic only gets so much. I have to be close. Getting the Thai is important for Sylvie in her voiceovers, so she can follow exactly what is happening and being shown. Also, a part of this Library project is capturing not only techniques, but the personality of these legendary fighters and krus, so being close enough to have an impression of them and what they are saying is a big deal. To make a long story a little shorter: It is a serious aspect that has been missing, but it came about through circumstances and technical limitations. What I'm looking forward to is incorporating the 8-16 2.8 into our video sessions and being able to capture whole figure movements, as well as voice.

We haven't as yet shot a Muay Thai Library session with the new lens, so I'm not quite sure how it will work out, and it will likely be a year of experimentation. We don't want an entire session of whole field distortion, and there are lots of times that it's much more suitable to frame tightly, but it's enough to say that whole figure frames will be included much more often. I'll just have to play it by ear and sense when is the best time for which. But, I do want to thank you who have voiced the need. It definitely led to the decision to purchase the lens, you are being heard.

I also look forward to more slo-motion captures of techniques like the one we shot above, from legends all over Thailand. We shot some with the previous camera Yodkhunpon's Shadow Elbows, Burklerk's Low Kick Counter, and Hippy's Power Kick, and here is one of Yodkhunpon's Cross-Grab on the Bag with the X-T3 before I understood all the settings. This is a special dimension of the Preserve The Legacy project, one that I want to make much more regularly done, perhaps an entire Library of slow-motion footage of techniques.

Which is to say thank you so much to all of Sylvie's patrons. You are not only supporting an incredible fighter who is breaking every boundary and imagined limit, writing history as she goes, you are making creative and important content possible. We're trying to go beyond what is expected in the aim of celebrating and preserving Muay Thai in all it's variations and complexity in Thailand. Some of this results in incredible events like the Muay Khao Summit or in public YouTube's like the Namkabuan slow motion, and much of it is given over to patrons in exclusive content. I'm adding hi-resolution images to that portion. We feel responsible to what you have invested in us, so we're doing everything to make it more awesome at every turn.

If interested in the legends found in these photos you can also watch Muay Thai Library sessions with both Karuhat and Yodkhunpon here:

#50 Karuhat Sor. Supawan - Serpentine Knees & Flow (62 min) watch it here

The legendary Karuhat teaches his winding, advancing style, a culmination of many, many hours of our training together. You get a glimpse into his advanced movements, and his philosophy on reading opponents.

#27 Karuhat Sor. Supawan - Tension & Kicking Dynamics (104 min) watch it here

Karuhat, a fighter with perhaps the slickest style of any Golden Age great, shows the importance of tension, and patiently goes through correcting the kick, making it quicker and much harder to read.

#20 Karuhat Sor Supawan - Switching To Southpaw (144 min) watch it here

2x Lumpinee Champion Karuhat Sor. Supawan in this epic video posts installs a limited Southpaw core which leads to developing high level ideas found in his switching style: tracking and attacking the open side, watching for and dictating weight transfer. This is the blueprint of a legend's acclaimed fighting style.

#11 Karuhat Sor. Supawan Session 2 - Float and Shock (82 min) watch it here

In this session one of the greatest fighters who ever lived really digs into what must lie beneath techniques, a general state of relaxation and rhythm, the thing that made him one of the most dynamic fighters Lumpinee has ever seen.

#7 Karuhat Sor. Supawan - Be Like Sand (62 min) watch it here

2x Golden Age Lumpinee Champion (112 lb and 122 lbs), Karuhat is considered elite among the elites. Mixing an explosive style with constant off-balances, angling, and melting aways, he was nicknamed the Ultimate Wizard. I can only describe the things he's teaching here as: Be like sand. This is very subtle, advanced stuff, far above combo techniques or specific defenses. It may take a few viewings to absorb what he is teaching. Everytime I watch this I learn something new.

Bonus Session 7: Karuhat Sor. Supawan - Forward Check | 39 min - watch it here

In this session Karuhat teaches his beautiful and unique Forward Check, and the system of attacks that flow out of it in his fighting style. You can read my detailed post in the Forward Check here. This check, aggressively from Southpaw, versus Orthodox fighters eats up space closes distance, effectively deal with one of the primary weaknesses of Southpaw attack.

Bonus Session 1: Karuhat Sor. Supawan | Advanced Switching Footwork | 60 min - watch it here

This is a beautiful session in which Karuhat expands on his switching style, having moved me from standard to southpaw in a previous session.

4 Legends Seminar - Bangkok April 2018 (1 hr 20 min)

Muay Thai Library legends Karuhat, Chatchai, Namkabuan and Dieselnoi were in seminar on two days instructing students from around the world. This is an hour and twenty minute video edit of a first-of-its-kind seminar in Bangkok. watch it here

#15 Yodkhunpon "The Elbow Hunter" part 2 - Escapes (48 min) watch it here

Part 2 of my session with one of the most feared elbow fighters of the Golden Age, Yodkhunpon Sitraipom, The Elbow Hunter of 100 Stitches. Lots of fine details in this one, escapes from clinch locks, turns and catches. Best is his floating, gentle style that also holds such violence.

#9 Yodkhunpon "The Elbow Hunter" pt 1 - Slicing Elbow (37 min) watch it here

Simultaneous Raja and Luminee title holder at 118 lbs, Yodkhunpon was one of the most feared elbow fighters in Thailand, and in this session he teaches the looseness and spacing that made his lead elbow such a viscious weapon. He also shuns the traditional rocking chair knee, and instead teaches a powerful stand-in crossing, open-hipped knee that compliments his elbows up top.

Bonus Session 9: Yodkhupon Sittraipum - Lethal Smoothness (73 min) watch it here

In this session Yodkhunpon really delves down into the smoothness of his style, with great emphasis on his galloping footwork towards the end. It's all about building a pressure style that does not strain, but rather exerts a constant music of forward attack.

Bonus Session 8: Yodkhunpon Sittraipum - Scissoring Elbows & Knees | 68 min watch it here

This is a great session with The Elbow Hunter, teaching his incredible Elbow and Knee Muay Khao pressure style. There is tons in this session, but a big part of it is watching how as a southpaw fighter you use the lead closed-side elbow and then the open side knee (or cross) in tandem.

Bonus Session 6: Yodkhunpon Sittraipum Front Side Attack | 77 min - watch it here

Yodkhunpon is the Elbow Hunter of 100 Stitches and in this session he shows a front side attack system, especially effective in standard vs standard, southpaw vs southpaw matchups, drilling the open side until your power side can finish. Lots of little elbow techniques also shown.

Some photos from my Instagram: