I have a new favorite camera – the 1D MK II. I used it for the Google shoot in Tahoe and it rocks. The battery life is nice, but the image quality is dope! This weekend Bill Dobbins also showed up with all new Canon gear switching from Nikon with the whole nine yards including a 1Ds MK II, 20D for backup, and all th requisite lenses. Then I got my renewal for CPS too so a lot of Canon love this weekend.

My favorite thing was probably seeing Collette Flack hoisting up a keg for reps. I think at our Orange opening party we should invite her to do the same, and then tap it and enjoy the rest of the evening.

and the token powder shot:

Today I shot my first local physique athlete of the year and had a pretty good time with it. She’s only been training two years, but has made a lot of progress as I got to see her before pix and it was a pretty impressive turnaround.

Gotta go through the shots now, but one of the first shots…

On Friday I rode past the Chronicle building down the street and all these cop cars and security were there as well as a crowd of people outside. Turns out it was Arnold meeting with the Chron.

Saw a post linking to this great article about the man, Bruce Lee.

Asian Power!

So Jessica Biel toned up for Blade Trinity and looked like she could have entered a figure competition. Her shoulders and arms in particular are noticable in the film, and she and co-star Ryan Reynolds talked about the training, results, size and strength they gained in this interview.

It’s good to see portrayals of women who actually look like they can kick ass and do in films, and in another interview, Biel said she’s “trying to stay in the middle range size-wise so I can get big really quickly or get small really quickly.”

When discussing her training she had this to say: “Yeah, heavy weightlifting for bulk. To bulk up in the beginning, then once I got to a certain size it was a more a maintaining and lots of cardio to kind of lean as much we can down. That’s why I have those striations down my muscles. Work to build, then maintain, then lean it out as much as we could.”

And when discussing how her stunt double didn’t look quite like her she mentioned specifically “she was an amazing, amazing stunt double and an amazing martial artist, but I had been in the gym so much that I was even bigger than she was. I was totally ripped in my arms. So from the side or running, I can see when it’s me, I can see my arms and hers are just a little bit different.”

There are some shots from her training which show her delts with striations (check out her website for more):

Continue reading Superheroes who look like superheroes →

People often ask how my involvement in the fitness and bodybuilding industry started since it’s pretty obvious from looking at me that I don’t live the lifestyle myself.

My first exposure to anything related was seeing the magazines on the newsstands and the first one I recall was Muscle & Fitness at a Kroger in West Lafayette, IN which had Boyer Coe on the cover. Since I’ve always liked super heroes this was the first time I saw actual humans who looked superhuman and was intrigued. I kind of forgot about things for a while and then in the 80s saw Women’s Physique World magazine which showcased female bodybuilders which I had never seen before. Throughout the 80s I followed the sport as I liked the look of the women, and in high school and college continued being a fan of womens sports. I tried to write a piece about steroids at Auburn University when I was writing for The Auburn Plainsman in the early 1990s but couldn’t get too many people to talk about it and that was the start of my journalistic career in the sport.

In college I attended my first contest and had friends involved in the sport. Supporting them, meeting the athletes and other fans was fun and since many of us were all over the place we often shared thoughts and ideas over online services like Prodigy at that time. As the internet evolved, I used to cruise the newsgroups since at that time the web sucked and only seemed to have research papers on it.

As the web evolved, I continued to post contest reports and photos online, and eventually had opportunities to create a site to host the archives. Since then, my personal web page was migrated and evolved into it’s current manifestation of ‘genex magazine’ which is run by James Cook of FTV. I’ve also done numerous freelance work for Ironman, MuscleMag International, Oxygen and various other publications.

At every show I go to I like to find new talent to showcase and at the GNC Show of Strength, finally met up with someone I had been talking to for a while who I had a chance to shoot with and also try some new stuff with.

Also tried to introduce her to as many people as possible to help promote her but you can probably see that she’s already got what it takes. Working with women like Melissa is always a pleasure and makes the long contest weekends even more memorable.

Waking up to a hangover never is fun, but at least this time it was for a good reason. It has been clear and sunny everyday until today and it’s overcast. Luckily that’s actually good for shooting so I had four shoots that I fit in. First up was Slovakian Aurelia Grazjnova who took second in the heavyweights and was a very pleasant woman, although I couldn’t really talk to her, but had to go through her translator. Next up was Kiwi Joanna Stewart. I have to say that everyone I met from New Zealand was so pleasant and everyone I’ve ever met from there is so nice. At 43, Joanna still looks amazing and said she’ll most likely be back for the 2005 edition. Finally Monica Hoeyer, Pia Johnsen’s friend was the final photoshoot. She had injured her foot at an earlier shoot and was hobbled by that, but was a trooper to shoot still.

After dinner at the hotel, I went by the Caprici Verd and ran into John again (who incidentally was reading Haruki Murakami’s Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World) and we were chatting when Joanne and Mark Stewart from New Zealand walked by and invited us to dinner and we accepted. Several hours and enjoyable conversation later, we headed back to the hotel to crash out.

The Finals began with a parade of athletes that was really neat. Seeing the delegates and an athlete representative with their flag was inspiring, especially for those smaller countries and ones that are further away from Spain. Once the welcome ceremonies finished, it was time for the competition and it was another long day and like many other shows in the sport, it wasn’t without a bit of controversy in the final results. Of course this being bodybuilding and fitness/figure, that is pretty much par for the course.

When the finals ended, it left a few hours before people would be getting ready for the banquet and party. It’s a nice touch to have an official party that is for everyone since in many of the shows in the states I’ve been to, the parties are separate entities and not part of the official festivities for the competition. The athletes looked amazing and would have been the perfect advertisement for why everyone should appreciate them. While people mingled for the first half and enjoyed hors d’oeuvres, everyone drank and relaxed until the disco portion opened up and I have to say that the Czech Republic ladies definitely were having fun on the dance floor including Eva Supkova who was getting down! Johanna Dajeager pulled me out on the dance floor and we grooved for a bit. By the end of the night, everyone was sweating and ready to get on the buses back to the hotels to crash out…

Little did I know as I sat down to breakfast with John Plummer of Weider Europe that Saturday would be so long. They call pre-judging semi-finals at the Worlds, and with ten different classes of athletes, there was a lot on deck. Things started out with fitness two-pieces and then the routines. Afterwards were the female bodybuilders and then mens fitness followed by body fitness (figure). The day was grueling as the arena did not have air circulation and since smoking is allowed indoors and virtually all the fans and athletes smoke, the air was moist and stuffy inside.

That didn’t deter the athletes though as the show was quite impressive if not for the length of it all.

Since prejuding ran from 09:30 until past 19:30 the sun was down and there was no opportunity to shoot with athletes. However, because the elimination rounds were concluded, many of the athletes were starting to enjoy themselves. The lobby of the Caprici Verd was full of delegates, judges, journalists and competitors, and everyone was drinking, smoking or socializing, which was nice. The language barrier is still there although most of the Western Europeans could speak English which was the common language. Everything shut down around 01:00 and it drew close a long day, but the finals were still ahead.

10:30 a.m. – Today I checked into my official room at the Maritim next door to the host hotel, Caprici Verd. It’s one of the overflow hotels, and I saw that the Dutch contingent will also be at my hotel as well as India (I think, although I can’t quite understand what the Catalan word was).

Picked up the media kit and am all set. Today will consist of scouting more locations around here to shoot as well as lining whatever up that I can.

After a slow afternoon where all the teams were checking in, the weigh-ins were upon us and it was the first time that everyone came together. It was more than impressive seeing athletes from Iceland, Norway, Lithuania, Poland, South Africa, Japan, Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Italy, Czech Republic, Russia, Brazil and Mexico, just to name a few. There were nine classes for the women and a total of almost 200 athletes total.

After the height check and weigh ins most of the athletes retired for the evening to prepare for the show. This being Europe, one thing you saw a lot of was smoking and everyone was reluctant to let me photograph them while they were enjoying a smoke. Also chatted a bit with John from Flex Europe and Johanna Dejager from Canada who was enjoying some wine and cheese which was her form of contest prep. Johanna looked amazing at weigh-ins and will be competing in the middleweight class, which looks very, very deep.

I also chatted with Jo Stewart from New Zealand and set up a shoot. The New Zealanders, Australians, South Africans all were incredibly nice and I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone from any of those coutries who wasn’t pleasant.

Continue reading Day 2 – Women’s Worlds →