The Boxer’s Journey
Daniel Young by Joe Mazza
Models often display, and photographers often capture aspects of a models personality. Their fun or flirty side, happiness, sadness or an expressed emotion. Depending on the concept, and the model's comfortability, capturing personality and emotion can be challenging on it's own. Going beyond, seeking to capture a model's essence, their bare essence, is when the nexus between artist and subject is most important, and intimate.
The intimacy is rooted in trust and vulnerablity on the part of both players. Most think it's only the model that must express emotion, but in order to truly trust, they must feel the artist behind the lens is also going to see, understand, and respectfully not only capture, but transmit and display what their sharing through the final images.
Personality can be seen, it' in the eyes, a model's smile, movement and pose. Essence is more intrinsic and abstract, it's quieter and still. it's not so much about movement or pose as it is about the intent behind them. Anyone can sit in a chair, wear an athletic supporter, or put on a pair of boxing gloves and have their picture taken. It's the connection that a model may have with them, that makes up the essence that Joe Mazza so beautifully captures in this series with Danny.
'Daniel Young is a personal trainer in San Francisco, an incredibly sweet person and one of my closest friends. We’ve known each other for almost 20 years and this series of photos with will always be one of my favorites. It took several years of coaxing to get him to agree to come in for a shoot; he’s very humble and a little private so when he came to me and said he was ready to be photographed I knew we had to design something special for him.'
'Daniel is clearly dedicated to being physically fit, mixing up his training with weights, boxing, martial arts, ballet for balance and running the stairs and hills in San Francisco. I pitched him the idea of telling a story of a boxer getting ready for a fight and he was excited to finally put himself in front of my camera. The shoot was a collaboration between two good friends and I think it shows in the images'
'The inspiration for the images: My background is in film so when ever possible, I look for deeper themes and levels when I do editorial stories. When I shoot with men, especially men who exude strength or traditional masculinity, I try to include their vulnerability. In this series, I wanted to use a boxer as a metaphor to depict how solitary it can be to prepare ourselves for challenges ahead as well as the journey from self doubt to surrender and finally to inner strength.'
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