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Emily Harney’s pictures pack a punch

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Emily Harney photographs boxer Mark DeLuca in South Boston.Barry Chin

As Mark DeLuca stands in the middle of the ring throwing combinations at an invisible opponent, Emily Harney is stalking the middleweight with her camera.

Emily Harney.Barry Chin

"That's good," she murmurs, staying just out of reach of DeLuca's jab.

It's another day at the office for Harney, who has been photographing fighters — champs and chumps, punchers and palookas — for the past 15 years. She was ringside for the first of Lowell boxer Micky Ward's epic brawls with Arturo Gatti, captured the inglorious end of Mike Tyson's career, and was snapping away while Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao preened at their weigh-in last spring. On this day, she's taking pictures of DeLuca, a rugged southpaw from Whitman, as he bobs and weaves at Peter Welch's Gym in South Boston.

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Harney's hustle has caught the eye of Hollywood, which used some of her images in "The Fighter," "The Avengers," and, now, "Creed," the acclaimed boxing film that could have been a contender for the best picture Oscar. Harney, a 35-year-old single mom who also teaches photography at Gloucester High School, is a rarity in the boxing world: She's one of the only women who shoots the macho sport.

"I get a lot of [expletive] for it," says Harney. "Guys who are, like, 'That's cute, you got credentials because you like to take pictures.'"

She doesn't care. Harney was a junior at Salem High School when she announced that she wanted to study photography in college. Her guidance counselor was dubious and more than a little discouraging. He told Harney she'd be better off taking business classes at a community college and treating photography as a hobby.

"He said it was a male-dominated industry and I wouldn't make it," Harney says. "I asked for my transcript and said, 'See ya later.' "

She learned how to shoot at the Art Institute of Boston — now the Lesley University College of Art and Design — and eventually focused on sports. Harney views athletes as artists and their games as a thing of beauty. Boxing entered the picture in 2000 after she read a story about Bobby Tomasello, a 24-year-old fighter from Saugus who collapsed in his dressing room following a 10-round bout and later died.

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"I'd never watched boxing and didn't know anything about it, but I thought, 'Wow, these guys are passionate,' " says Harney. "I literally opened a phone book, found a boxing gym in Quincy, and asked if I could come down and take pictures."

That was it. Harney was hooked. In her free time, she'd wander unannounced into gyms with her camera, photograph guys sparring, shoot amateur fights in Elks lodges. She was almost always welcomed. Even if they didn't know her — and early on they didn't — boxers and promoters appreciated the attention.

"She just took great shots," says former boxer Peter Manfredo Jr. "So what if she's seeing me in my underwear in the dressing room? Emily was one of the guys."

For her senior thesis, Harney wanted to follow a fighter for a year. At a bout in Lowell, she bumped into an addled ex-boxer named Dicky Eklund, who was refereeing the fight. She asked Eklund afterward if he knew anyone who might take part in her project.

"He said, 'You gotta meet my brother Micky Ward,' " says Harney. "I didn't know who that was, but I said OK."

Micky Ward fighting Arturo Gatti in May 2002.Emily Harney

Ward, a relentless welterweight whose back story became the basis of "The Fighter," the 2010 movie starring Mark Wahlberg as Ward and Christian Bale as Eklund, agreed to participate, and for the next several months he and Harney met at least once a week in the gym.

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"At first, I thought, 'No way this guy is a fighter.' Micky's so small and sweet. But then he gets into the ring and transforms," says Harney. "I was shooting 15 rolls of black and white a week, and breaking my parents' bank account."

Her portfolio's piece de resistance were the pictures she took at the first Ward-Gatti bout in May 2002, a punishing 10-round war that is considered by some fight fans to be one of the all-time great boxing matches. Harney captured every haymaker, every buckle of the knees, every drop of blood.

"I'm glad she seen it because I don't remember it," says Ward, who has since retired. "To be in this game, you got to be tough, twice as tough if you're a woman, and Emily is."

Like the fighters she photographs, Harney gives as good as she gets. When British boxer Ricky Hatton, annoyed that a woman was shooting his pre-fight workout, tossed a sweaty T-shirt at Harney, she threw it back at him. And when Mike Tyson complained in the media about a photo she'd taken of him quitting in his last fight — Tyson famously sat down in the sixth round of his 2005 fight against Kevin McBride — Harney responded.

"I did my job," she told a reporter at the time. "He didn't do his."

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Harney’s photo of Mike Tyson in 2005.Emily Harney

It can be a dirty job. Harney, whose cameras of choice are a Nikon D3S or a Nikon D2H, never wears white because she's close enough to the action to catch a spray of blood. She's been vomited on twice, had a fighter fall on top of her through the ropes, and witnessed numerous gruesome knockouts that left boxers unconscious on the canvas.

"I saw Kevin [McBride] go unconscious one night," she says of the Irish boxer who lives in Dorchester. "I thought he was dead."

Her pictures are published in Ring Magazine and Fight News, and Harney also maintains a website — EmilyHarneyPhotography.com — to sell images directly to fighters, their publicists, and promoters. But it's not a lucrative business. She was excited a few years ago when the producers of "The Fighter" called to ask if they could use some of her photos to create boxing posters to put on the walls of locker rooms and gyms in the movie. Harney said yes and that led to other movie opportunities, including "Creed," which stars Michael B. Jordan and Sylvester Stallone, whose role earned him an Academy Award nomination.

"To tell you the truth, I didn't love the last 'Rocky' movie," she says. "But 'Creed' is great — and there's my name in the credits."

Longtime boxing publicist Bob Trieger has hired Harney many times over the years.

"I've worked with a million photographers and so many of them don't know boxing," Trieger says. "You need to catch the guy getting popped on the chin, with the sweat and the blood flying everywhere. Emily gets that shot. She really works at it."

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The speed bag is silent at Peter Welch's Gym as DeLuca unwraps his hands. Harney is sitting on the edge of the ring, scrolling through the images in her camera.

"I just want to make beautiful photos with people who love what they do," she says. "That's it."

Jose LaPorte in March 2001, the first pro fight Emily Harney photographed.Emily Harney

Mark Shanahan can be reached at shanahan@globe.com .