Archive for category fitness/sports
movement and muscle
Posted by mareadyphotography in fitness/sports, video on February 5, 2012
a while back i made an acroyoga video with chelsey korus and matt giordano that turned out completely fantastic. check it out HERE. ever since that shoot i imagined making a dark, contrasty video showing tight shots of the body in motion. the movements of arms and legs, muscles tensing and relaxing, the rib cage moving from breathing… it’s all so graceful and beautiful – especially when done with the precision of a professional. after a few months of conflicting schedules the stars aligned and chelsey ended up back in front of my camera.
we also took some photos:
critics and champions
Posted by mareadyphotography in fitness/sports, video on December 6, 2011
i’ve always like a quote by teddy roosevelt about what it takes to be a critic and what it takes to be a champion. it’s always been in the back of my mind to make a video about it, but i kept putting it off. a bit ago i decided that i needed to make it happen, so i drew my storyboard up and it looked like this:
it was about a boxer – so i started looking up places to shoot. the first place i went to was john’s boxing gym in the bronx. it was beautiful. everything you could ever want in an old boxing gym. i negotiated with the owner and soon had a date set to shoot. he said,”if you want to use some of our boxers – just let me know who and we’ll see if they can help you out.” one of the first dudes i saw was just what i was looking for. his name was chris galeano. turns out that the guy was for real. he had just won the title of golden gloves at madison square garden. that’s pretty boss. after a chat, he told me he was down. i asked him if he had a friend who would be his opponent and he said he’s ask abraham kabore.
a couple of weeks later i was in a car loaded with equipment heading to john’s gym. one of my buddies matt fricovsky was gracious enough to come along and give me a hand, so we unloaded our junk and chatted up chris and abraham. they were buddies and had never fought in the ring, so it was funny to watch them spar. chris was so used to pummeling everyone he fought and he joked around about how it was weird to let himself get hit. chris and abraham were tough as nails, but they were some of the nicest dudes and were really easy to work with.
i had a good idea of how i was going to shoot it, but i changed a few things around and did some stuff on the fly. of course that ate into our time, plus i had promised them both a few still shots for themselves so i budgeted a little time for that before we had to be out. when all was said and done, we had just under and hour and a half for video. considering how it all came together so quick, i’m pretty happy with how it turned out.
skate through nyc with a gopro
Posted by mareadyphotography in fitness/sports, video on July 31, 2011
the footage gopro cameras produce is fantastic and i’ve seen some crazy stuff filmed with a gopro, but i think i found it’s achilles heel – my skateboard. the day i bought the camera, i strapped it on my board and skated for 2 hours before the camera was completely dead. wouldn’t even turn on. i sent it back and got a new one, determined that i started out with a bad copy, and slapped it on my board. about an hour into my ride, the little guy started spittin blood. i could tell it was going to give up the ghost, so i tried to be easy on it (kinda defeated the point of getting it), but even so, the sd card would disengage after any jolt, and sometimes it would just power off or give me an “SOS” message. just before the battery died, i found out that the vibrations had caused the lens to start unscrewing itself from the camera body. it had slowly been unscrewing for about 15 minutes, making all that footage blurry and useless (you could actually see it unscrewing in the clips as i was skating). to add insult to injury, almost half of the good clips i had taken that day didn’t record on the card. between the 2 days and 2 cameras i ended up with about 4 hours of recording time and about an hour and a half of usable footage. despite the fact that i had to be gentle, i ended up with an awesome video – and a new paperweight.
UPDATE 4 Aug 2011: the last thing i want this video to be is a negative PR campaign for gopro. gopro cameras are tough as nails – but while they might be bomb-proof, it’s crazy to think that they’re indestructible. i skate very hard wheels and the roads are amazingly bumpy, so the cameras i used took a massive beating before they bit the dust. a few of you have asked me if you should buy a gopro – of course you should. they haven’t lost me as a customer and i hope this video gains them a customer or two. they’re solid cameras and i expect that they’ll get tougher and tougher as time goes on.
pre lives on
Posted by mareadyphotography in fitness/sports on June 16, 2011
samuel adams always thought running for fun was ridiculous. unless he was late or being chased by someone with a knife – he was walking. but one fine day he got inspired by steve prefontaine’s amazing story and laced up his sneakers. that’s all it took. he’s been hooked ever since and now sam wants to stir inspiration in everyone else who thinks they’ll never run strictly for recreation. sam looks a lot like pre to begin with, so he grew a sweet handlebar stache and we shot some pictures to capture the spirit of pre’s devotion to running. i have to say that i’m on the “lateness and knives” program, but after hanging with sam and hearing his story it got me thinkin about hittin the pavement myself. if you’d like some motivation to use your getaway sticks, sam will be holding meet-ups, races, fun runs and other cool stuff. check out his site: www.preliveson.com.
acroyoga video with chelsey korus and matt giordano
Posted by mareadyphotography in fitness/sports, video on May 23, 2011
last year i shot motocross champ ryan dungey in soho. as i was waiting for his crew to show up, i saw these two people doing acroyoga on the sidewalk. i guess it was the first time i had ever seen acroyoga and it was pretty friggin cool. i broke out my camera and took a few snaps of them doin their thing and then headed out to shoot ryan. pretty soon ago, i came across the pictures i took of the acroyoga people and had a vision. after some bloodhound work that would make dick tracy proud, i had them in front of my camera yet again to fulfill my vision. behold – the vision:
matt’s website: www.theyogimatt.com
chelsey’s website: www.chelseykorus.blogspot.com
will sheridan likes dudes
Posted by mareadyphotography in fitness/sports on May 17, 2011
i got a call from espn.com to shoot will sheridan. will played basketball for villanova a few years ago and totally crushed it. the story we were shooting for was him announcing to the world he’s gay. and not like, “the flintstone’s song” kind of gay, but the “likes dudes” kind of gay. actually, he’s really happy – so i guess he’s both kinds of gay. will is a rad guy – real fun, easy goin and super easy to shoot. his new focus in life is music and he just released his first album, “ngoma.” the song “welcome to the jungle” is on ngoma and it’s been on loop in my head for the last 5 days. he has more music that’s gonna drop in the fall, so be on the lookout.
to watch and read will’s interview on espn.com, click HERE
will’s TWITTER
will’s BLOG
ryan dungey rules it
Posted by mareadyphotography in fitness/sports on February 15, 2011
i got a call from YRB mag to do a very last-minute shoot with ryan dungey on the street in soho. it was his first time in nyc and he seemed pretty hyped to be here. dungey is pretty fancy on a dirtbike. he slays every race he enters and his victory list wouldn’t fit on one of those 82 page nyc diner menus. in fact, he became the first rookie in history to win both the premier supercross and national motocross titles in his inaugural season. to top it off, he led team USA to victory in the motocross of nations. motocross of nations! that sounds superbad, huh? well that’s because it is. and ryan crushed it.
world cup 2010 in madrid
Posted by mareadyphotography in documentary, fitness/sports on August 3, 2010
so my friend monte isom is a photographer and he’s always got something up his sleeve. dude kills it behind the camera and his hustle skills are just as strong. on thursday the 8th of july i got a call from monte saying he had a plan in the works. the next day i was on a plane bound for the netherlands. after hanging with customs in amsterdam for six hours or so, and after BARELY making it through with our gear (that’s a crazy story within itself), i rendezvoused with monte and hung for the night. we chilled with some of monte’s rad amsterdam peoples and afterwards got some waves, winks and kisses blown at us while on a walking tour in the red light district.
don't take pictures of the ladies - they get pissed
instead of hookers, we got french fries. they were a lot cheaper and less likely to have STD’s. by that time it was like 2 am, and the women of the night would stroll in and out of the deli in-between clients to order their usual meals. i got two hours sleep that night – and the next morning i was on a plane to madrid. see, monte’s plan was to photograph the world cup fans in the public viewing areas. he would shoot in amsterdam, i would shoot in madrid and we’d put the pictures side by side to have a fans showdown. my plane landed in madrid and i went straight from the airport to the hotel – and then straight to the plaza de colon
one of the many public viewing areas packed with excited futbol fans. i was kinda loopy from no sleep, but the energy of hundreds of thousands of people crammed together kept me goin. here’s what we got:
at the end of the second half, the score was 0-0. when overtime kicked in, tension was thick. the ball would get close to spain’s goalie and everybody would start freaking out – then the ball would get close to the netherlands’ goalie and everybody would scream at the top of their lungs. it was back and forth for probably 10 minutes until spain scored. the crowd went totally bonkers. it was insane. completely insane. for the last few minutes, the tension got thicker and the responses got more excited. when overtime ended and spain was still in the lead, the whole city of madrid LIT UP. it was spain’s first world cup win and the most important futbol victory in spain’s history. consider this: in america we have baseball, we have (american) football, and we have basketball. some like one, some like another, some like none. we have no unified sports pride. but in spain (like a lot of other countries) the elderly, the middle-aged, the teenagers and the kids all have a dedicated love for futbol. so you can imagine that when spain won, the city went bananas. TOTALLY – BANANAS. people were yelling, people were jumping, people were hugging and crying, and everybody was happy. i ended up in the middle of a public fountain dance party with about 20,000 happy spaniards.
it was an unbelievable night and i can’t believe i was there to watch it all go down. the noise that tore through the city when spain won was the same noise that was still blasting when i went to bed at 5am. i got up 2 hours later and was pretty delirious, but managed to fumble my way to the airport to catch my flight. i must have been in a time warp because i got to nyc 5 days before my checked luggage.
me post public fountain dance party
yoga and belly dancing
Posted by mareadyphotography in fitness/sports on July 2, 2010
i got a voicemail from erin the night before we were supposed to shoot saying, “i’m having contractions today and i’m in a little pain, so i’m not sure how it’s going to work out for tomorrow…” that was kinda scary. but she ended up feeling better and we got some nice pictures. but dude, that baby was ready to come out. it was kinda rad because she was really still and it was pretty quiet on set, but she had a fully grown bundle of joy in her belly doing the Carlton Banks.
if gumby was a super-hot girl, he would probably be kimberly snyder
Posted by mareadyphotography in fitness/sports on December 1, 2009
i get a little de-motivated sometimes when i see somebody effortlessly do something that i know is crazy hard – but when i look at kimberly snyder do yoga it’s the exact opposite. i’ve seen kimberly do yoga a few times, and i know the poses she does are mad hard to do, but she makes them look so tranquil and smooth that it’s really inspiring and motivating. like, it really makes me want to take time out of my day and do yoga. most days, i get so busy and caught up in photography that my personal hygiene takes a hit, my fingernails get long and i forget to eat and blah blah… basically what i’m saying is that kimberly makes me want to find time that i don’t have and do something good for my skateboard-battered/horribly nourished body. and speaking of nourishment, if you want to find out what kind of fuel she burns in her jet-fighter-like body, she shares her knowledge as a certified clinical nutritionalist in a health-and-beauty blog at kimberlysnyder.net. somethin tells me that my daily dose of those extra dark “le petit ecolier” cookies (is anybody else addicted to these things like i am?) are scarce found on the pages. but some tasty, less artery clogging options like cyan pepper immunity tea, kimberly’s raw pecan love pie, and banana soft serve with raw fudge sauce are all over that sucker. plus there’s tips on how to keep your skin, nails, hair and pretty much your whole body healthy. check it out.
makeup by marshana
