Photography MONTIS SONGSOMBAT
Text FAWN KONGSIRI
Text FAWN KONGSIRI
EXCERPTS FROM INTERVIEW WITH MONTIS
Montis Songsombat lives two lives, in the ring and behind the lens. A Muay Thai fighter and a photographer.
Born and raised in Thailand, he moved to New York to study fashion at Parsons, expecting to pursue design. It was by a stroke of luck that he met a friend that inspired him to go into photography.
That curiosity led to a growing body of work that spans fashion editorials and commercial work for major brands and publications. But perhaps his most intimate work can be found in his ongoing personal project photographing the culture of Muay Thai.
“I actually started Muay Thai in New York. I was always interested in martial arts. I was watching it long before I started training,” Montis explains, “I wanted something to kind of forget about what I was stressing out about, whether it was career or money.” And so he walked through the doors of Sitan Muay Thai gym in Astoria, Queens where he came to meet his coach, Aziz.
Rather well-known in Thailand, Aziz Nabih has coached many a Thai fighter. Montis’s Thai privilege card came in handy as he explains, “since I was the only Thai person, he really wanted to have a Thai fighter under his gym in New York, even if it’s for fun or amateurs,” leading him to begin training seriously and fighting. From then, Montis began his research into the sport, learning more about its rich history, reading up on the camps back in Thailand and their legacies.
“I’m a fan first, a fighter second.”
After returning to Thailand, he joined Pinsinchai gym in Bangkok, one of the country’s top Muay Thai institutions which has produced numerous champions and where many of Montis’s favourite fighters from the golden age trained.
“If I’m lucky enough, I could be getting trained by the same trainers that trained them, right?”
The gym’s deep history is what makes it so appealing for Montis to document. He is witnessing one of the last legacy of fighters there, as he is unsure whether they will produce any more, “so I’m pretty much getting the ending of their legacy… that makes it feel a lot more significant.”
That awareness lends his images a quiet urgency, a sense that he’s capturing not just moments, but possibly a final chapter of a storied lineage.
He began photographing the fights and the community, producing intimate, behind-the-scenes portraits that peel away the spectacle to reveal the emotion and dedication behind the sport.
“When you document Muay Thai you can’t really direct, it’s more like how do I capture that movement at it’s best frame,” Montis explains the documentary approach he has adopted.
At Pinsinchai he considers himself lucky to be surrounded by subjects who enjoy getting their photos taken.
“They’re really aware of it too. So whether I tell them to go stand for a purposely directed portrait where they can be in a fighting pose or whether they’re training, they’re always hyper-aware and they want to look good.”
The boys can’t necessarily pose while training, but they’re aware that a camera is there so they work really hard to make their technique look good for the photos.
“I’m very fortunate in that sense.”
“Whether it’s my love letter to Muay Thai or whether it’s documenting a changing industry, I know it’s something that is significant to me. I’m still trying to grasp what I want to say with the photos, but I know how much the sport means to me. I not only train and fight but I also go gamble at the stadiums with the uncles. A lot of my happiness is within the Muay Thai community. I make a lot of friends there, I meet a lot of cool people, and I get a lot of new experiences. So maybe the work that I do would reflect all of that.”
SEE FULL STORY IN ARTIFACT ISSUE N°1