Mark Ruddick Mark Ruddick

Fitness Photoshoot with Tyler

I had a chance to work with Tyler a plant based athete. One of the cool things he is doing is bringing a plant based jerkey to market. Tyler wanted to work with a dark theme for his fitness pictures with minimal distractions.

Dark and moody

We played with a bunch of different lighting schemes

We played with a bunch of different lighting schemes

- Mark Ruddick Photography - My images are an exploration of the human body under muscle stress — understanding the body’s strength, flexibility, and power. Creating these images has given me a better understanding of the human form which has transitioned into my commercial fitness work. 

I am a London, Ontario photographer who specializes in fitness, bodybuilding and fight photography.

I love to tell stories as anyone who's worked with me can attest. That includes visual stories through photographs. Let me tell your story and provide high impact images of you to sponsors, agencies, family or just for yourself.

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Mark Ruddick Mark Ruddick

The Athletic Nude Project

August 2015 - September 2019

Thank you,

As the Athletic Nude project ends I want to acknowledge all of the participants. Thank you so much for trusting me with your image and collaborating on this photo series.

I will still occasionally create images in this style, but on commission only. It has been a great time making all of these images and I have memories to last a lifetime.

It just seemed like the right time to wrap the project up. It started in a boxing ring years ago and the sat on the shelf for many, many months until I picked it up again. Sometimes I shot many athletes in a month or in a week and other times it was months in between shoots. I’ve had athletes come from as far as Saskatchewan and Alabama for the project. I remember each shoot and each one was a little different. I’m proud of the work and am looking for a gallery opportunity to show it off in a print format.

Below are images from each of the shoots I have done.

The Athletic Implied Nudes series is an exploration of the human body under muscle stress— understanding the body’s strength, flexibility, and power. Clean backgrounds, hard lighting, and black & white photography work together to eliminate distractions and highlight the muscle groups and figure of my subjects.

Beginning with Mixed Martial Artists and Boxers, I have developed my technique to capture rapidly firing muscle groups at high speed in front of the lens. The resulting instinct for timing fight photography has lead to an ability to freeze my subjects at the peak of their motion. Discovering a better understanding of the human form with this project has transitioned into my commercial fitness work, maximizing composition and positioning to best showcase the human form.


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Mark Ruddick Mark Ruddick

Athletic Nudes (Baseball) with Todd (NSFW)

In winding down my project I got lots of people volunteering for it this summer. Todd reached out and I found out he had been playing baseball for a very long time, so we arranged the shoot around a baseball theme. Todd is also a competative bodybuilder, so I knew he’d be in good shape for the shoot. Todd brought along his bats from the Stevensville Bat Company, out of Niagara, great looking bats.

Batter ready

The tools of ignorance

On deck

This picture took a few tries to get.

Baseball portrait

- The Athletic Implied Nudes series is an exploration of the human body under muscle stress— understanding the body’s strength, flexibility, and power. Clean backgrounds, hard lighting, and black & white photography work together to eliminate distractions and highlight the muscle groups and figure of my subjects.

Beginning with Mixed Martial Artists and Boxers, I have developed my technique to capture rapidly firing muscle groups at high speed in front of the lens. The resulting instinct for timing fight photography has lead to an ability to freeze my subjects at the peak of their motion. Discovering a better understanding of the human form with this project has transitioned into my commercial fitness work, maximizing composition and positioning to best showcase the human form.

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Mark Ruddick Mark Ruddick

Athletic Nudes with Simon

I had the chance to work with former fighter and current model Simon Marini a couple of weeks ago. He was a cool guy and had lots of stories to tell during the shoot. He has a great athletic frame and hit the poses really well.

Simon with the flying knee

Warrior

Front kick

- The Athletic Implied Nudes series is an exploration of the human body under muscle stress— understanding the body’s strength, flexibility, and power. Clean backgrounds, hard lighting, and black & white photography work together to eliminate distractions and highlight the muscle groups and figure of my subjects.

Beginning with Mixed Martial Artists and Boxers, I have developed my technique to capture rapidly firing muscle groups at high speed in front of the lens. The resulting instinct for timing fight photography has lead to an ability to freeze my subjects at the peak of their motion. Discovering a better understanding of the human form with this project has transitioned into my commercial fitness work, maximizing composition and positioning to best showcase the human form.

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Mark Ruddick Mark Ruddick

Athletic Nudes with Rachel

I had a great time photographing Rachel who is a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu practitioner and a butcher. Her fight name almost writes itself. We got lots of good pictures and she was in really nice shape. Abs were brought out and photographed.

Thanks to my latest Fanshawe student Lisa for helping out.

Showing core strength

Flexibility

Great back and lats

- The Athletic Implied Nudes series is an exploration of the human body under muscle stress— understanding the body’s strength, flexibility, and power. Clean backgrounds, hard lighting, and black & white photography work together to eliminate distractions and highlight the muscle groups and figure of my subjects.

Beginning with Mixed Martial Artists and Boxers, I have developed my technique to capture rapidly firing muscle groups at high speed in front of the lens. The resulting instinct for timing fight photography has lead to an ability to freeze my subjects at the peak of their motion. Discovering a better understanding of the human form with this project has transitioned into my commercial fitness work, maximizing composition and positioning to best showcase the human form.

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Fitness Mark Ruddick Fitness Mark Ruddick

Photo Session with Canadian Olympian Kristen Bujnowski

Canadian Olympic bobsleigher Kristen Bujnowski needed images for promotion and sponsors. She came into the studio and we figured out the plan to get her the images she needed. In addition to being a world class athlete Kristen is also a mechanical engineer. It was a really treat to work with her. We captured a bunch of sponsor images and other promotional pictures. Below are a few of the images we made.

Makeup: Faces by Abie

Canadian Olympic Bobsleigher Kristen Bujnowski

Bobsleighs can travel at 140+ km/h, notice the scrapes on the helmet?

In her speed suit and spikes

- Mark Ruddick Photography is a full service London, Ontario photographer who specializes in fitness, bodybuilding and fight photography

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Mark Ruddick Mark Ruddick

Last Shoot of 2018 with Decathlete Josh Mather

The last shoot of 2018 was with Decathlete Josh Mather and photographer Howard Adams. Howie had set up the shoot so we could team up and do some sports portraiture together. Howie is the go to guy in London for any track & field photography. Josh is a great athlete and is going to Rutgers University next year on an athletic scholarship. We did some action shots and some portrait work.

I was pleased overall how the pictures turned out and I learned a lot from Howie about timing and positioning for track & field events.

It was good to get out of the house and into the studio after 5 days of being sick in bed. Thanks to super assistant Wendy for her help, I needed it.

We started with long jump.

From the end of the pit.

Then we played with the Javelin and some fog.

Side lit to show off shape

We finished up with some standard portrait work.

- Mark Ruddick Photography is a full service London, Ontario photographer who specializes in fitness, bodybuilding and fight photography

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Mark Ruddick Mark Ruddick

Athletic Nudes with Sherri

Sherri contact me in December last year about shooting the athletic nude series. She's a fitness competitor. After a one week delay from bad weather in February we got a chance to shoot in the studio. Sherri was in great shape with good definition.

Deadlifts are great for engaging backs, arms and legs.

The rear double biceps pose shows off the back nicely.

- The Athletic Implied Nudes series is an exploration of the human body under muscle stress— understanding the body’s strength, flexibility, and power. Clean backgrounds, hard lighting, and black & white photography work together to eliminate distractions and highlight the muscle groups and figure of my subjects.

Beginning with Mixed Martial Artists and Boxers, I have developed my technique to capture rapidly firing muscle groups at high speed in front of the lens. The resulting instinct for timing fight photography has lead to an ability to freeze my subjects at the peak of their motion. Discovering a better understanding of the human form with this project has transitioned into my commercial fitness work, maximizing composition and positioning to best showcase the human form.

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Mark Ruddick Mark Ruddick

Athletic Nudes with Tyler (NSFW)

Amateur mixed martial artist Tyler came into studio for my athletic nude series. He had a wide variety or strikes and his kicks were particularly good for photographing. We didn't shoot a tonne of pictures as my timing was good that night and Tyler was deadly accurate.

Tyler delivering a spinning back kick to the bag

Full extension on the high kick

Left hook to the chin

- Mark Ruddick Photography is a full service London, Ontario photographer who specializes in fitness, boxing and mma photography

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Mark Ruddick Mark Ruddick

Athletic Nudes with Aaron - Full Set (NSFW)

I met Aaron initially at a fight he was participating in. I shot the poster, the weigh-ins and the fight. When I put out a call for more volunteers for the project he answered. He's a cool guy and we had a lot of fun working on this shoot. Like most athletes we got our best pictures when we got Aaron moving around and utilizing his muscle memory.

Kneeing the heavy bag

Shadow boxing

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Mark Ruddick Mark Ruddick

Athletic Nudes with Jeff - Full Set (NSFW)

Here's the complete set from my session with Jeff. He came in with a great physique and a great attitude. I'm really happy with the way the images turned out, even with the challenge of his height. Jeff vascularity really stood out.

Showing off the back and arm

Killing a 135 arm curl

Dead lift to show off quads and glutes

- Mark Ruddick Photography is a full service London, Ontario photographer who specializes in fitness, boxing and mma photography

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Mark Ruddick Mark Ruddick

Athletic Nudes with Aaron

I met Aaron initially at a fight he was participating in. I shot the poster, the weigh-ins and the fight. When I put out a call for more volunteers for the project he answered. He's a cool guy and we had a lot of fun working on this shoot. Below are some teaser images.

High kicks on the heavybag

Aaron delivers the flying knee, high and accurate

We did shoot a few static posed images to really show off the hard work done at the gym

The poster from the fight I photographed Aaron at

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Mark Ruddick Mark Ruddick

Athletic Nudes with Sebastian Part 2

I won't write a lot about this shoot, but I wanted to share a few more images from it To read more about how the shoot came together, click the link below.

Part One: http://www.markruddick.com/blog/2016/12/16/athletic-shoot-with-sebastian

The lighting for this shoot was pretty simple. 2 softboxes to the rear providing rim light and a beauty dish to the front, high and pointed down for muscle definition. 

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Mark Ruddick Mark Ruddick

Athletic Nudes with Michelle

Last year Michelle came into studio to photograph my Athletic Nude series. She was just off competition from the Ontario Physique Association. She was still lean and ripped from competition as you can see below. We had a lot of fun with this photo shoot and got some great images. She even got my hanging off the ladder shooting down for the push-up images.

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Mark Ruddick Mark Ruddick

Fitness with April

Model April came to the studio to get some fitness photographs done. She competed in her first MMA fight last year and this year she's been hitting the weights hard. The images turned out great and this is a check in on her physique as she continues to reshape it.

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