swings and arrows: The Beauty of Sports

Ali vs Cleveland Williams

For some time now I have collected digital copies of sports photographs and saved them in a folder on my work computer. I never really had a plan for the images and didn't use them for desktop wallpaper or a screensaver. I didn't Pin them or post them onto other social media sites. I just wanted to keep them because they were stunning and I never wanted to forget they existed. Now that I post on S&A and the Olympics and the Superbowl are fast approaching, I thought I may as well share some of them.

Very recently I noticed many of the shots I saved were boxing photographs. There are endless images from all of sports that are breath-taking, but there is something about boxing that stands above the rest, in my mind. Capturing action, in any form, can be beautiful and sporting events give photographers the chance to be close to the action with little to no obstacles. You can see several different sports in the photographs below, but boxing always takes the cake. There are a few reason why, I think, this sport always offers the most beautiful images. First, boxing is vicious and a physical battle between two opponents that closely resembles the natural battles between animals in the wild. Second, unlike most sports, boxing is confined to a very small area and photographers are able to be extremely close to the action. This not only helps with close ups but you can shoot with a wide angle and still keep the action close. Third, because the fighters are on a raised platform, photographers need to shoot from a low angle looking upward. This makes for some amazing angles.

Excuse the length of this post but I wanted to show images from as many sports as I could. I tried to have images that were both beautiful and important sports moments since this type of photography is both artistic and photo journalistic.