Fight Night

A series of images whiz across the tabletop of the local café, courtesy of Zachary Lynch's portable laptop computer.

Along with the slideshow presentation is a short video of barefoot warriors in training, accompanied by the rhythmic pop-pop-pop of closed-fist hitting open glove. In Lynch's arms are dozens of more colorful images that come tumbling onto the table, depicting the fighters in training, fighters at play, and fighters positioned for battle, squaring off inside a metal cage and seemingly preparing to pound each other into submission.

Get Zachary Lynch talking about watching this 'ultimate fighting' or 'extreme wrestling' experience, and the 30-something photojournalist sounds as excited as a young boy ripping through presents on Christmas morning.

'The sport is about to explode like nothing I've ever seen before,' Lynch says. 'It's quite a phenomenon.' And despite the brutish appearance of a six-foot high chain-link fence that surrounds the game area, the fighters doing battle inside the octagon-shaped ring are among the best conditioned athletes in the world.

The sport incorporates parts of wrestling and boxing, judo and karate, kickboxing and jiu-jitsu.

'It's like kinetic chess,' Lynch says.

They don't even have the hokey-yet-distinctive nick-names of yesteryear either. There is not a 'Hulk' or 'Wild Man' among them. These are guys named Stephan and Nathan and Kenny. They are personal trainers, real estate investors, and graduate students with degrees in everything from sports medicine to communications. A number of them have won Olympic medals.

While Lynch has done some local wrestling of his own, he says, 'I realized I had no business being in there.' His spot these days is 10 feet away from the ring, among thousands of fans, capturing images with his digital camera.

He spent Super Bowl weekend in Las Vegas, shooting the Ultimate Fighting Championships from a ringside seat with Cindy Crawford and rapper Ice T on one side of him, and actor Vin Diesel and pitcher Greg Maddux on the other.

'Full access, 10 feet from the ring,' he says, with a combination of humility and wonder. Afterward, there were locker room interviews and post-fight press conferences, as well as any number of Vegas surprises.

'I bumped into Kid Rock, so I popped off a few shots,' says Lynch, the shots presumably referring to his digital camera - a medium that Lynch enjoys so much he still won't use traditional film.

'I got into photography as a hobby about 10 years ago. I started playing with a small digital camera that held 10 pictures and the quality

was horrible. At first, I didn't think I could do it,' he says. 'Then I got another camera, then another, and another...' He was hooked.

One of his first successful digital shots he says with some pride was Congress Park's Spit and Spat, an image that he captured in 2000.

Some of his more popular local images since have included the city's mineral springs, the big, leafy green lily pads at Yaddo and a recently designed horizontal landscape he calls 'Old Skyline of Saratoga Springs.'

The image was created from multiple photographs that Lynch took from the Saratoga Tavern rooftop in December 2003, during one particularly colorful scarlet and saffron sunset that Lynch simply calls the most memorable dusk he has ever seen.
His hobby has delivered opportunity. He has taught the art of digital photography to more than 300 area adults, and has worked behind the scenes at image-conscious publications GQ and Vanity Fair. He has also committed to his share of comic book illustrations, as well as having his own gallery show.

'It's a hobby I love. It gives me the chance to travel and to meet people, to expand their horizons and to share my experiences,' Lynch says.

Clearly, what provides the happiest experience is the 'respectful competition' of a world that celebrates things like the arm lock, the takedown and the toe hold.

'I get to go into the arena and watch it fill up. I get to talk to people, to sit there for a couple of hours and to take pictures. Meanwhile, the entire time they will be rolling, tumbling, and falling down," he says with an excitable what-in-the-world could be better than this grin.
"And then afterwards, I get to go out with a couple of the fighters and we all talk about it.'"

by Thomas Dimopoulos
The Saratogian, Feb. 18, 2005