Mark Ruddick Mark Ruddick

The Athletic Nude Project

August 2015 - September 2019

Thank you,

As the Athletic Nude project ends I want to acknowledge all of the participants. Thank you so much for trusting me with your image and collaborating on this photo series.

I will still occasionally create images in this style, but on commission only. It has been a great time making all of these images and I have memories to last a lifetime.

It just seemed like the right time to wrap the project up. It started in a boxing ring years ago and the sat on the shelf for many, many months until I picked it up again. Sometimes I shot many athletes in a month or in a week and other times it was months in between shoots. I’ve had athletes come from as far as Saskatchewan and Alabama for the project. I remember each shoot and each one was a little different. I’m proud of the work and am looking for a gallery opportunity to show it off in a print format.

Below are images from each of the shoots I have done.

The Athletic Implied Nudes series is an exploration of the human body under muscle stress— understanding the body’s strength, flexibility, and power. Clean backgrounds, hard lighting, and black & white photography work together to eliminate distractions and highlight the muscle groups and figure of my subjects.

Beginning with Mixed Martial Artists and Boxers, I have developed my technique to capture rapidly firing muscle groups at high speed in front of the lens. The resulting instinct for timing fight photography has lead to an ability to freeze my subjects at the peak of their motion. Discovering a better understanding of the human form with this project has transitioned into my commercial fitness work, maximizing composition and positioning to best showcase the human form.


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Mark Ruddick Mark Ruddick

Athletic Nudes with Yve

Had a great shoot with fitness competitor Yve right after her show. She was a great poser and had lots of athletic ideas to shoot. It’s always a pleasure working with someone creative like that.

Strength and flexibility

Classic rear double bicep

Posing with dumbbell

Chest press on bench

- The Athletic Implied Nudes series is an exploration of the human body under muscle stress— understanding the body’s strength, flexibility, and power. Clean backgrounds, hard lighting, and black & white photography work together to eliminate distractions and highlight the muscle groups and figure of my subjects.

Beginning with Mixed Martial Artists and Boxers, I have developed my technique to capture rapidly firing muscle groups at high speed in front of the lens. The resulting instinct for timing fight photography has lead to an ability to freeze my subjects at the peak of their motion. Discovering a better understanding of the human form with this project has transitioned into my commercial fitness work, maximizing composition and positioning to best showcase the human form.

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Mark Ruddick Mark Ruddick

Athletic Nudes with Sonny

I had put out a call for participants in my Athletic Nude series and Sonny responded. He said he was moving to London the next week for a job. Little did either of us know at the time his job was in the same building as my studio, so that was a really funny coincidence. We only had a very short time to shoot but I think we will set up a part two of this shoot for the series.

Showing the core thickness

We always start with a good back shot.

Using side light to highlight the physique.

Full body picture.

Stretching out to show the hamstrings

Great way to display the shoulder thickness

Great way to display the shoulder thickness

- The Athletic Implied Nudes series is an exploration of the human body under muscle stress— understanding the body’s strength, flexibility, and power. Clean backgrounds, hard lighting, and black & white photography work together to eliminate distractions and highlight the muscle groups and figure of my subjects.

Beginning with Mixed Martial Artists and Boxers, I have developed my technique to capture rapidly firing muscle groups at high speed in front of the lens. The resulting instinct for timing fight photography has lead to an ability to freeze my subjects at the peak of their motion. Discovering a better understanding of the human form with this project has transitioned into my commercial fitness work, maximizing composition and positioning to best showcase the human form.

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Mark Ruddick Mark Ruddick

Athletic Nude with Karina

Karina came to the studio a short while after her competition, in which she did well. Karina was extremely well conditioned and it really showed nicely in the hard contrasting light. We did a lot of beautiful poses and Karina was really athletic too and did a great handstand. I always appreciate athletes taking time out of there training to do this project with me.

Dumbbell row, great back muscles.

Great form and musculature

Showing off back, triceps and glutes

- The Athletic Implied Nudes series is an exploration of the human body under muscle stress— understanding the body’s strength, flexibility, and power. Clean backgrounds, hard lighting, and black & white photography work together to eliminate distractions and highlight the muscle groups and figure of my subjects.

Beginning with Mixed Martial Artists and Boxers, I have developed my technique to capture rapidly firing muscle groups at high speed in front of the lens. The resulting instinct for timing fight photography has lead to an ability to freeze my subjects at the peak of their motion. Discovering a better understanding of the human form with this project has transitioned into my commercial fitness work, maximizing composition and positioning to best showcase the human form.

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Mark Ruddick Mark Ruddick

Athletic Nudes with Mindy Part 2

I had done this series with Mindy last year after she competed. We both agreed there was more to shoot in the series and we came up with some new poses. The images turned out very good.

Dumbbell row

Mindy holding plates showing off her back and shoulders.

A little softer than the images on black, but still shows off her physique.

Strength and flexibility

- The Athletic Implied Nudes series is an exploration of the human body under muscle stress— understanding the body’s strength, flexibility, and power. Clean backgrounds, hard lighting, and black & white photography work together to eliminate distractions and highlight the muscle groups and figure of my subjects.

Beginning with Mixed Martial Artists and Boxers, I have developed my technique to capture rapidly firing muscle groups at high speed in front of the lens. The resulting instinct for timing fight photography has lead to an ability to freeze my subjects at the peak of their motion. Discovering a better understanding of the human form with this project has transitioned into my commercial fitness work, maximizing composition and positioning to best showcase the human form.

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Mark Ruddick Mark Ruddick

Athletic Nudes with Malcolm

Malcolm, a personal trainer, came down to the studio to shoot my athletic nude series. He was in great shape, nice and cut but still with lots of energy to engage the muscles for the shoot.

- The Athletic Implied Nudes series is an exploration of the human body under muscle stress— understanding the body’s strength, flexibility, and power. Clean backgrounds, hard lighting, and black & white photography work together to eliminate distractions and highlight the muscle groups and figure of my subjects.

Beginning with Mixed Martial Artists and Boxers, I have developed my technique to capture rapidly firing muscle groups at high speed in front of the lens. The resulting instinct for timing fight photography has lead to an ability to freeze my subjects at the peak of their motion. Discovering a better understanding of the human form with this project has transitioned into my commercial fitness work, maximizing composition and positioning to best showcase the human form.

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Mark Ruddick Mark Ruddick

Dancers in the Mist

I've been working on my dance photography since the beginning of 2018. In conjunction with building up my portfolio I've been doing a series of dance pictures taking in the fog (fog machine in the studio) For this series I am just using rear lights and using the fog as a weak reflector in the front. The setup really shows off bold shapes very well and the variance in the amount of fog means each picture is a little different. So far I've had 4 dancers shoot this with me and I'll probably do one more and then let it rest for a while and try and come up with something new.

www.londondancephoto.com

www.londondancephoto.com

- LondonDancePhoto is a full service London, Ontario photo studio specializing in dance and performance photography

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Mark Ruddick Mark Ruddick

Athlete Series

I am working on a long term project with different athletes to photograph their physiques in implied nudes in black and white. The main point is to show off the power and athleticism and not to be salacious. Tyrone was an awesome model for this project and really impressed me with this jumps and body control. Also he could spin the basketball on his finger, which was really cool.

I am looking for athletes, male and female, from any athletic discipline for this project. Contact me if interested.

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