Emanuele Cavallucci. The New Italian Pro Boxing Welterweight Champion
Boxing is cruel to photographers. Not because it’s fast — although it is — but because it’s chaotic. In the ring, there’s no neatly choreographed movement, no second takes. You’ve got sweat flying, ropes cutting through your composition, referees wandering into frame, and the perpetual risk of being exactly half a second too late.
This shot came together with the Nikon D610 paired to the Nikkor 24–120mm f/4 — a workhorse lens that, while not the fastest in maximum aperture, offers just the right flexibility for ringside work. Here, I caught the moment Cristofori’s jab lands flush on his opponent’s cheek, the head snapping back, muscles taut with the torque of the punch. The challenge was freezing that instant while keeping the image clean, sharp, and properly exposed under erratic, mixed arena lighting.
Technically, it’s a balancing act. At f/4, you need to push ISO to keep shutter speeds high enough to stop motion — I was running at 1/500s, which, given the D610’s full-frame sensor, still let me hold detail without drowning in noise. White balance is another headache: sodium vapour mixed with LED spotlights can play havoc with skin tones. I corrected as much as possible in post without scrubbing away the natural atmosphere of the scene.
Compositionally, I wanted three layers: the fighters as the main subject, the referee as a secondary anchor, and the crowd forming a live, reactive backdrop. Notice the man in the front row, eyes locked on the action, jaw tight — almost as if he’sfeeling the punch. Those human reactions tell as much of the story as the glove connecting with skin.
There’s grit in the shot, but there’s also structure. The ropes act as leading lines, the red mat grounding the composition and contrasting with the fighters’ darker trunks. The punch is the focal point, but the frame breathes — you get the ring, the audience, the tension of the moment.
It’s not a clean sport, and a good boxing photograph shouldn’t be clean either. This image has the marks of the fight on it — just as it should.
