Issue No. 28 – Control

What is the nature of control? The desire for it—and to be free of it—are essential parts of both life and art.

Photo Journal Monday: Richard Wade

Photo Journal Monday: Richard Wade

Belfast Boxers © Richard Wade

Belfast Boxers © Richard Wade

“In 2014, while working as a teachers assistant at a high school in Belfast, I I became friends with Michael “Mighty Quinn,” McAllister in 2014, a successful amateur boxer who also worked in the high school. I asked Michael if I could come down to photograph him at his gym and from then on I began meeting other fighters and coaches and stuck around. It was as much an exercise for me in creating a piece of documentary work as up until that point I had avoided photographing people I didn’t know.”

Belfast Boxers © Richard Wade

Belfast Boxers © Richard Wade

“At the time I knew little about boxing so I stayed around the gyms and fighters for long periods of time. I became interested in the idea that to succeed in boxing, one must accept suffering and pain. There was no bypassing it. You literally have to get punched in the face and keep walking forward towards the person punching you. Through training the boxers weaponize their bodies to inflict as much damage to their opponents as possible. Yet there is also a real brotherhood amongst the fighters, one that is hard to come across in day to day life.”

Belfast Boxers © Richard Wade

Belfast Boxers © Richard Wade

Belfast Boxers © Richard Wade

Belfast Boxers © Richard Wade

When looking at the history of Belfast from 1969 onwards it is easy to overlook the fact that we are a boxing city. Amazingly, through decades of violence and division the city consistently produced high-level boxers who became World Champions, Olympians and Commonwealth medallists. To me at least, boxing seemed like a universal language that the fighters communicated to each other in. Race, religion or creed does not matter inside the gym, it was always about becoming a better fighter, and in a place like Belfast that felt even more significant.

Belfast Boxers © Richard Wade

Belfast Boxers © Richard Wade

Photography can never be truth, but photographing boxers felt in some way closer to photographing the truth than anything else. I felt like the subjects revealed a lot of themselves in the pictures. A good example of this is my portrait Eamonn Magee, a famed fighter who had just lost his son to a murder several weeks before I photographed them. I remember after I took his picture being struck by just how much of himself he seemed to give to the camera, especially during undoubtedly the darkest part of his life.

Belfast Boxers © Richard Wade

Belfast Boxers © Richard Wade

I was lucky to exhibit this work with Larry Fink’s boxing series in the summer of 2016 shortly before I moved to New York. The first project I worked on in Brooklyn was about kid boxers. For the last few years I have been documenting professional wrestling extensively on the East coast but definitely plan on revisiting the Belfast boxers in the future.

You can find more of Richard’s work here.

Photographic Alphabet: I is for Weronika Izdebska

Photographic Alphabet: I is for Weronika Izdebska

Weekend Portfolio: Tal Barel

Weekend Portfolio: Tal Barel