The ALI Folio™: Photographs of Sonia Katchian at the Ali Center

About the Photographer: Sonia Katchian

The documentary work of Sonia Katchian concerns itself with the great, the downtrodden and everyone in between.   Sonia first met Muhammad Ali while shopping in New York City with her sister who urged her to run after him.  She reluctantly sniffed, “Why would I want to photograph a boxer?”  This exhibition is the answer to that question, and her sister Anahid continues cheering her on, for which the photographer is eternally grateful.

Two of Sonia’s photographs are part of the permanent installation at the Muhammad Ali Center. Most recently her photographs were acquired by the Smithsonian and others are in private collections and museums around the world.   She was called to Hollywood in 2001 to be a consultant on the Sony Pictures feature film ALI starring Will Smith.  Film director Michael Mann poured over the thousands of pictures Sonia has taken of Ali over the years, especially those during the period 1974–1981, as inspiration for the biographical film.

Sonia was the first woman photographer hired by The New York Post.  She was the first woman photographer credentialed to shoot at ringside for a heavyweight championship bout and the first foreign journalist to be kidnapped on Beirut’s infamous Green Line during Lebanon’s civil war.  She is co-author of the photo anthology “Women See Woman” by Harper & Row and is a founding member of the original Soho Photo Gallery.  Before moving to the Triangle area of North Carolina, she worked in Tokyo for a decade where she was director of Photo Shuttle: Japan, Tokyo correspondent for Photo District News, and photo editor of Business Tokyo magazine.  Sonia is a graduate of Barnard College and has taught photography in New York City and in Durham, North Carolina.  She counts as her mentors W. Eugene Smith and Arthur Tcholakian.  Today she shoots photos for corporate clients for their annual reports and brochures and has expanded into multimedia documentary projects.

Sonia’s work can be seen online at www.photoshuttle.com and www.alifolio.com.

Listen to Sonia Katchian's interview on NPR

Artist bio text courtesy of Muhammad Ali Center