Shana Martin: Powerful & Beautiful

During college, I was introduced to dance.  I’d seen ballet before, but always thought of it as “people in tights prancing around looking silly”.  While working as a stagehand for a wide range of dance companies–from traditional ballet to modern to avant garde–I learned exactly how powerful and amazing dance really is.  It was almost a revelation to understand that these 90-lb girls were far more powerful and athletic than most anyone in professional sports.  I distinctly remember seeing a dancer with the Hubbard Street Dance Company–a woman in her 30′s (which is downright elderly in the world of dance)–and thinking “this is a woman who could kick holes in plate steel”.  A bit of hyperbole, perhaps, but probably not by much.

My exposure to (and expanding appreciation of) dance shaped my concept of “fitness”.  And my training in (and execution of) “dance lighting” created an aesthetic that would come back to me decades later when I picked up my camera to shoot models.

The lighting in theatre is highly stylized.  Dance takes it even farther.  The lighting in dance is designed to highlight the shape of the body–often at the expense of seeing the face.  And the scenery isn’t even given a 2nd thought[1].

When I first started working with “model-based” photography (rather than shooting theatrical sets and performances), I set up “proper” lighting.  The models were well lit, but it was rather boring.   I’m not sure what triggered the thought, but one day I threw “correct” lighting out the window and shot a model using “dance” lighting.  The results were fantastic.

Model = Marksman

Since then, I’ve had the opportunity to work with several fitness models–or models who are very athletic.  My style of lighting is both extremely flattering and extremely unforgiving.  For an athletic model, the harsh lighting highlights and accentuates muscle tone and the shape of the body.   Traditional lighting–designed to show a person’s face–de-emphasizes musculature.  You can see the whole body very well, but it gets “smoothed out”.

My approach to fitness photography takes a completely different vector.  What’s important is the body–the muscles, the shape, the tone.   I’m not interested in the traditional trappings of a “sexy photo”; that’s not what it’s about.  I strive to portray athletes as powerful.  Power, strength, and the perfection of form are inherently beautiful and sexy.

My approach to fitness photography is very different from the norm. Where traditional photographers seek to portray fitness models as “sexy”, I choose to present them as “powerful”.  A woman who can bench press twice her weight, run a marathon, or go 15 rounds in the ring shouldn’t need to put on a bikini and a cheesy smile to be seen as beautiful.  A powerful form–male or female–is beautiful.

Model = AidenRN

When looking for a photographer, a model–pro, amateur, or regular person–wants to know “Why should I work with this man?”  To a great degree, the work must speak for itself; you have to like what you see.   Positive recommendations are, of course, a great resource.  The thing that’s often overlooked is the basic philosophy of the photographer.

Beauty is not only skin deep, and the camera always lies.

A good model understands this, and a good photographer uses it to his advantage. I continually strive to find the deeper beauty and the perfect lie. Pretty people are boring; art should tell a story, reveal a secret–silly, sad, or sensual, it doesn’t matter. This gallery affords me the opportunity to tell those stories. I hope the viewers can understand them.

Photography is not my profession, but my passion. I’m not looking to deal with people who wish to be the latest supermodel. I’m looking to find beauty and tell lies–in other words, make art.

There’s a misconception that photographs don’t lie.  This couldn’t be further from the truth.  While a photograph may be very accurate at depicting what the camera “sees”, the camera is narrow-sighted and half-blind.  It sees what we tell it to see.

Not only do I understand that, I actively embrace it.

Photography–even in it’s most factual applications–is an art.  A photographer needs to learn how a camera “sees” things, and then make it see what he wants it to.   The photos I take are very different from what you’ll see from most photographers.   I use very harsh–often unforgiving–lighting because it brings out details that “proper” lighting washes away.  I don’t do any retouching or “Photoshopping”, because I find those to be the wrong kind of lies–the kind that hide who you are rather than showing who you are.

There’s a second side to the lens, however.  The camera can only see what’s in front of it.  Where other photographers will carefully pose a model or client in order to get things “just right”, I don’t.  That’s not you.  That’s me posing you in the “expected style”.   In my studio, we’ll talk, we’ll joke around, we’ll get to know each other a little bit, and we’ll make sure that the photos we take show you being you.