Something Different

I shot this image of professional bodybuilder Kevin Levrone about ten years ago at the Mr. Olympia in Los Angeles. The photograph was taken from my seat in the audience with at telephoto lens, without flash and with a high speed film -- most likely 1600 ASA. The grain is a result of the high speed film.

For several years in the ninties I took my camera to bodybuilding events and shot several rolls of high speed film from my seat. With a 300mm lens on a 35mm camera it was fairly easy to get good shots of the pros. I got the best results when I had orchestra seats.

At this Olympia event I was seated in the balcony. Hence the photo is cropped to zero in on Kevin and there is more grain than usual.

Tickets for the Iron Man Invitational held every year in Los Angeles during February were less expensive and it was easy to get seats just a few rows back.

If you try this, the key is to use a 1600 ASA film and turn off your flash. Your flash won't do any good anyway because it only reaches about ten feet. It just makes you look stupid to real photographers.

Praise

Sometimes when I work with a model in the studio and want to loosen him up and discourage him from falling into standard bodybuilding poses, I ask him to swing his arms and throw his head back.

This instruction, like all others I give a model, gets different results each time I try it.

In this image Yvan looks like he could be offering a prayer to the heavens.

Yvan

This image of Yvan was created several years ago. I have worked with Yvan twice over the years. In this first photo shoot with him he was larger and more defined.
Several years later when I worked with Yvan again he had purposely lost size to compete with fashion models in the modeling industry. Although is is still handsome and magic in front of a camera, I personally prefer his look in this shoot.
This image was shot on film in black and white with a Mamiya medium format camera in a rented studio with hot lights. At this point in my career I was just beginning studio work and had not yet bought my own equipment and set up my own space.
Oddly the lighting arrangements in this early shoot are very much like the ones I use today. I am using two equally bright lights at about 90 degrees from the camera on either side of the model.

Jock Strap

This image is from one of my first photo shoots at a nude figure workshop. The model's name is Tony. The location is a stretch of desert east of San Diego. This was shot with color film, grey scaled and then toned.

Alan Effects

These two images are both based on the same photography of Alan. The first is a reversal or negative of the image.

The second image is a digital variant of the Lith technique whereby you use a negative to create a positive image on Lithographic film; then use you Lith positive to create a Lith negative; then print a positive from the final Lith negative. Taking the image through these steps with Lith film eliminates the gray tones and turns everything to either flat black or flat white. The Photoshop digital equivalent of this technique is much simpler and less time consuming. Basically you adjust the image using the Curves dialoge box and force the dark half fo the image to black and the light half to white. I used to spend literally days doing this technique the old way. The only down side is that the Photoshop technique is so easy that what used to feel like an art technique not feels like a simple digital trick. If it's not difficult, can it be art?