Lit candles are placed on the ground as people gather to attend a memorial service before the funeral of Russian leading opposition figure Boris Nemtsov in Moscow, March 3, 2015. Several hundred Russians, many carrying red carnations, queued on Tuesday to pay their respects to Boris Nemtsov, the Kremlin critic whose murder last week showed the hazards of speaking out against Russian President Vladimir Putin. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

Boxing is a sport more often associated with brute violence than with aesthetics. But photographer Howard Schatz has turned thuggish fighters into the subjects of extraordinary portraits showing the beautiful side of pugilism. The stunning pictures, collected in a new book, took six years to capture as Mr Schatz sought to investigate every aspect of the controversial sport.