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Physique
: An Intimate Portrait of the Female Fitness Athlete reviewed by |
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Though the title refers only to fitness athletes, Physique has some female bodybuilders amongst its models. As Goode explains in his preface, he prefers today's fitness athletes or the female bodybuilders of the 80's to today's female bodybuilders. Why? The physiques are not as harsh and have better lines, basically. It's the same reason fitness competitions flourish while women's bodybuilding contests languish.
Enough with the social commentary, what about the book, right? I will admit up front that I am not familiar with almost all of Goode's previous work so I cannot judge how this collection compares to it. That said, he does have an eye for bringing out some great poses from his models. Too bad about the grain.
The grain?
Nearly every picture in this black & white collection is way too grainy. Now, I understand that grain can be used to achieve a great look--at times. However, when I am looking at collection of athletes' physiques, I want to see their physiques. Athletes have contours that non-athletes don't have. The light works differently on their bodies and I want to see that. What do I see in this book? Grain. GRAIN? It's so bad at times that it obscures the details that I want to see. It looks worst on what appears to be 35mm prints. The large-format work (much done for Playboy) looks fair--not as grainy but not nearly where it should be. This leads me to wonder whether the book's printer is to blame. The only other example of Goode's work that I have seen was his series on Carol Semple-Marzetta in Muscular Development (many of those pictures are in this book) and those pictures were grainy, too. Perhaps he just likes grain on everything. I maintain it is inappropriate for every picture in a physique photography collection to be grainy. Brings out the eyes but not the body.
Well, with that out of the way I can continue with the review. As I mentioned, Goode does have an eye and gets some great shots from his models. He is not a master of lighting, though. Let me re-state that: Goode can light his subjects well when he takes the time to do it. Many of the shots just don't grab you the way a well-lit shot would. The model is beautiful, her look is great, perfect pose, and blah. Take his portrait of Denise Paglia (#10). Where are her legs? A bit of tweaking the lighting and "blah" would turn to "wow". Goode does mention that he can take a thousand pictures in a session so my guess is that he's going so rapid-fire that he doesn't take the time to tweak his lighting. He should spend more time tweaking. At a fitness contest or on location, a photographer has to make the best of the given light but in a collection of studio photographs, as most of the shots in the book are, the lighting should be better.
It's an okay collection. It doesn't quite measure up to Bill Dobbins' The Women : Photographs of the Top Female Bodybuilders, though it does grow on you after repeated viewings. It will attract readers who just have to have every picture of Debbie Kruck topless, of course, and others may have Goode's sensibilities and like his shot selection better than I did. It is definitely worth a look-through but I would not rate it an automatic buy.
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