Mark Ruddick Mark Ruddick

Athletic Shoot with Sebastian

I had contacted Sebastin a couple of months ago about getting together to photograph my implied nude athletic series. He liked the concept and the images but was a little unsure because he's an actor. I completely understood his hesitation and left it with him. We ended up reconnecting a month later and he said lets do it, so last weekend I brought him into studio.

I am humbled by the trust he put in me and my work. Sebastian is a complete class act and total professional to work with. Rather than go on I'll leave you with Sebastian's beautiful words on how he felt about the first image he got back.

Why?... Why this image?

I think it has to do with how life strips us down to all we really are sometimes.
It's about losing everything this past few years and starting over with all that's left. .

It's about how a person begins to fight their way back, leaping naked and fearless into the world, with all the strength they have in them and seeing nothing through the dark.

When all a person thinks they are is stripped away, it starts from this, from all they ever really were - just a body, just a mind... just a will to fight for something more.

When the elements that define most people are lost - belief systems, relationships, titles
and things that give comfort - what remains? Your art forms, your ideas, your passion - 
these are all you hold inside you when you begin again.

And what about the Bo staff? 
Learning to wield it came to make sense, because what else but a stick is available when all else is stripped away?

When life lays us bare we have no tools, no weapons. 
We use what's on the ground and dive into the fight with whatever is at hand.

We're born with nothing, so it makes sense that some find a rebirth the same way,
leaping into life stripped of everything, but the stuff God gave us to start with.

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