Lawrence Ripsher's Photo Journal

High Kicks

While photographing ringside at The Contender Asia, I had the opportunity to shoot some great fighters on the undercards. Over the next couple of weeks, I'll be posting some of my favourite images from these undercards. One such event took place when Antti Herkman, who has since become a friend of mine, stepped into the ring. I was warned in advance to expect some high kicks from the big Finnish fighter, and the man delievered... in stunning fashion..

Attached are some of my favourite moments from his fight. My personal favourite is the fourth one down. Note, none of the fighters below are contestants in the Contender Asia.

Click on any photo to enlage. All photos copyright Lawrence Ripsher.

A few hours in San Gimignano

I spent last weekend in Italy on a business trip. Saturday was work but Sunday was free and got a few hours to walk around San Gimignano, a small town about 45 minutes outside Florence. There was no time for serious photography but to be honest, I was happy just to be there relaxing, drinking coffee and taking in mild European weather that I've not experienced in nearly twelve months. However, I did snap off of a few shots though and have included them below.

International Kickboxer Magazine

International Kickboxer magazine, pubished in Australia by Blitz Publications, has run a cover with one of my photos this month. In the magazine, there is an excellent 6 page Behind the Scenes article on The Contender Asia. The article, which also features a half dozen or so of my shots, obviously does not reveal any results or sensitive information, but it does provide a great introduction to what the show is about. Mark 'The Hammer' Castagnini, the GM of Blitz, goes on to explain what it can achieve for the sport of Muay Thai and how it will affect the future lives of the three Australian contenders John Wayne Parr, Bruce "The Preacher" MacFie and Soren Monkongton. The enthusiasm and excitement for the Contender Asia within the Muay Thai community is clear - it's going to be an exciting next few months. Thanks goes to Mark and the team for putting this together.

International Kickboxer went on sale on the 17th October. You can also subscribe to the magazine here. Below are a few of my images that were covered in the article (click on any image for a larger version, all images copyright Lawrence Ripsher).

This was the cover. From left to right are John Wayne Parr, Soren Monkongton and Bruce "The Preacher" MacFie.

John Wayne Parr working the bag

Soren training

JWP and Soren

A Wedding at Raffles

Those of you who follow this blog will know I don't usally shoot weddings. However, on occasion, I'll take on assignments that appeal to me from an artistic point of view. Mina and Taoki, a wonderful Japanese couple who are good friends of ours, asked me to phoograph their wedding last month and after talking, it was clear that our ideas alligned as to how their day should be captured. So I agreed to being their photographer and on a lovely Sunday in September '07 at Raffles Hotel, we watched them take their vows. I've posted a few shots below from the wedding.

The Contender Asia Wallpapers

The Contender Asia website just got updated with profiles of all 16 fighters who will be competing in the show. There's also a section now called Downloads which features six images from me. You can download large versions of these from the site. Some of the photos I have shown here before in low res but there are some new ones also which I've posted below. Check out the official website for the wallpaper versions.

Kim Khan Zaki

David Pacquette

Rafik Bakkouri

John Wayne Parr

Commissioned

This was cool. I took a picture of a friend's dog a couple of years back and last month somoene commissioned a pastel drawing of it as a present to the owner. The dog, Kingsley, is a border collie living here in Singapore with his lovely owner Shanni. The original picture I took is here:

The drawing, which was given as a birthday present to Kingsley, is here:

This is only the seccond time someone's painted one of my photos - is pretty cool seeing photographs make it into other art forms and seeing how other artists interpret them. Belated happy birthday kingsley btw!

Airborn

A shot I took a couple of weeks ago. It just got published in New Man in Singapore as part of a short article on Muay Thai. This image was captured during an undercard fight at the Contender Asia (i.e. the fighters are not the contestants on the show). I took this with my 5D with a 35mm L f/1.4 mounted.

Click on the image for a larger version.

Copyright Lawrence Ripsher

[Edit - this also was published in the Straits Times on Friday 19th October 2007]

Contender Promo Shots

Flyers and promotional material for The Contender Asia are now starting to appear with my studio shot images, so I thought it was a good time to share some here.

The following are three of the show's contestants. Those of you who are in Singapore (or at MIPCOM in Cannes this week) may have already seen these images appearing in public. The shots, which in printed form include additional processing from Ogilvy (a cracked glass overlay - very cool), are being used as the primary marketing images on flyers and in other promotional material. I was pleased to see a large 1 metre-ish sized print of Rafik's shot too the other night which looked great.

Once again, those interested can see the fights live during filming by ordering tickets here. If you do make it down, feel free to give me a holler and say hi during the intermission.

Anyway, here are the shots.

Yodsanklai Fairtex

Rafik Bakkouri

Kim Khan Zaki

Straits Times - Part 2

There was another article in the Straits Times yesterday (Tues 2nd Oct) on The Contender Asia - a well written and interesting piece on the opportunities that reality TV presents for advertisers. The article appeared in the sports section of the Home segment, and included one of my pictures. I won't post the image here as it's actually the same one as they published last time last time.

Edit - for those interested, the article can be found online here.