Travel & Humanitarian Photos
Muay Thai is Thailand’s national sport and no visit to the country would be complete without some experience of the sport. As a spectator I mean. There’s going to be trouble if bus-loads of tourists start climbing out of their air-conditioned coaches and climbing into a Muay Thai boxing-ring.
Having said that, the training centre I visited this morning had its fair share of high-kicking overseas visitors. Muay Thai is a stylish, graceful and powerful form of kick boxing where fighters use their elbows, knees, shins and feet as well as their gloved fists. Visitors come from other countries to train at the Muay Thai centres, which have a reputation for producing fighters with high levels of stamina and fitness.
The Fairtex Muay Thai training centre I photographed this morning is a remarkably peaceful place. Although fighters are busily training in the four roped rings and kicking or punching the collection of swaying punch bags there’s a lot of laughter and smiles. Training is taken seriously of course but there didn’t seem to be an awful lot of posturing and the place certainly didn’t seem especially testosterone-filled.
Despite the fearsome poses, the people training, some as young as thirteen, seemed about as ready to break into a smile as they were to break into a sweat. It probably has a lot to do with the sense of custom, tradition and mutual respect that surrounds Muay Thai. The tradition of Wai Khru is a ritual part of a Muay Thai fight and involves the fighter paying his respects to his teacher.
Experienced Muay Thai fighters are supremely fit and have incredible stamina. I wouldn’t say that I felt especially unfit in their presence but, well, there were one or two press-ups when I got home. I forget if it was one or two but it’s a start, right?
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Gosh, that 1.2 is nice. I need to upgrade my 1.8 for some serious shooting. Nice shots….
dude, you rock. love the look of the f1.2. really nice pics.
jack
Gavin, did you add some vignette? Or is that generic from the 1.2? Thanks…
Hi Peter, I added some vignetting in Lightroom. The 1.2 doesn’t show any noticeable vignette.
Jack, cheers!
Thanks you did an amazing job with the focus then, I am still struggling with my 1.8 focus. Hope to get that under control before getting the 1.2. Thanks for technical sharing.
Another cracking set of images Gavin. Did you set this up with the owners beforehand or did you just walk in off the street? Can’t imagine being able to do the latter back here in the UK!
Is the 1.2 lens new? Looks like a nice piece of kit.
Barry
Cheers Barry.
The manager of the centre was expecting us but it’s a pretty informal setup. No, I can’t imagine it would be so straightforward back home, sadly.
I’ve had the f/1.2 lens for a while now. It really is a super lens and if I could only travel with one lens then I’d be tempted to choose this one.
Good to hear from you Barry.
Not sure about the avatar – looks like I will be stuck with that for life now, well until you change your website again!!
Sorry about that Barry. It looks nothing like you. Well, perhaps a little bit.
To anyone who’d like their own, custom avatar just sign up at gravatar.com and upload your own picture.
WOW! Gavin: Would you like a guest post on my site talking about 1-2 of your fave muay thai photos? I wanna share then with the world.
Hi Gavin, My name is Lee Mccormick, i was just wondering if you could help me with my photos. Ive just started taking photos of kick boxing and my photos are turning out yellow. I have a canon mark 111, im useing a 50mm 1.4 lense, i use auto white balance, f2.8 at 3200iso at 1250. can you tell me what im doing wrong or how i can fix them.
Thanks ever much for your time.
Lee
Hi Lee, my guess is that you need to adjust the white balance setting. If you shot RAW files then you can make adjustments in post-production on the computer. If you are shooting JPEGs then you need to set the white balance accurately in the camera. If you’re photographing at the same location I was then it’s partly outdoor and you get a challenging mix of natural and diffused daylight with artificial light. You could set a custom white balance reading when you arrive, either from a white card you can buy for just that purpose or from a piece of white paper. Good luck!