Fights, The

San Francisco : Chronicle Books , 1996. 1st. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. 127 pages. Hardcover. Extensive b&w photography throughout. Illustrated frontispiece. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket. Hoff's skill as a photographer is shown plainly throughout this book. He was known for using very little film, which increases an objective appreciation of his skill; he understood boxing and could anticipate moments of significance and arrange them to create technically superb photographs, without making dozens of pictures. The boxers depicted in this volume are now historical figures, but so are these photographs, of which Hoff is perhaps the best example. Live television coverage has changed the nature of boxing photography irrecoverably since the days when Hoff was photographing the sport. This volume is important as a historical document, then, from two angles - firstly as a record of what many perceive as the golden age of boxing, but also as an archive of amazing photography skills which are now impossible for photographers to learn, let alone master. A must for fans of both serious photography and boxing. Record # 352316