Disclaimer: Shooting Victims is a portrait series by Benjamin Reed. No subjects were harmed in the making of this photograph.
Mariel Zagunis is a badass. After making history at the Athens Olympics becoming the first American fencer in a century to win a gold medal (which is also in the history books as the first for women’s saber), she won gold again in Beijing…add that to her 7 world titles and, like I said, she is a badass. Her list of achievements is scary.
I expected to meet a type A aggressive when we met up for our initial interview. I was way off. She was a sweetheart. Extrememly kind. Very calm. She went out of her way to make sure I was taken care of.
We sat down to chat and I immediately thought of Uma Thurman in Kill Bill. The scene where Thurman destroys 88 swordsmen single handedly. I ran the idea by her and she was in. We did some location scouting and at the end of the day I watched the film again to try and adapt what I saw to my style of portraiture…and this is what the team came up with.
We called a wrap after 3 hours of shooting. Mariel smiled and lowered her saber. "That was awesome!" she said.
Credits:
Hair and Make-up: Amy Gilespy
Lighting: Jeremy Kelty
Extras: Maggie DeSantis, Thom Stevens, Krisin Anderson, Matt Brush, Erica Heidrick, Nebedon and Kathleen Grebe.
7 Comments
That’s bad ass man! Dig it.
freaking sweet.
Fantastic work my friend! Retouching and toning are top notch as well.
Sky
Love the idea on the second one. Love the look and feel of the pictures. Some of the bodies look awkward though. The one up front, which may be her, with the sword in her mouth in particular is hard to ignore and some others look like they are taking naps. It just takes away from the feeling of “badass” which the setup and feel of this picture conveys really well. The merging of the legs coming out of her hip and the other guy on the right feels strange too. It feels more like the “victims” fell down in mock drama than she cut through them like Uma Thurman, but its not like you want a horror movie set, so i guess there’s a compromise. And is that a scar on her forehead? Looks a little like a caterpillar. Adding a small drop of blood from that would add some tension…its your picture though, so I won’t say anymore. I just think its a great picture and I love the idea, feel, composition, execution, toning and I think with a few tweaks it would be really make her look like a badass. Nice work and sweet picture, sounds like a fun shoot.
Great job on this Ben! Did any of the highlife cans show up in shots?
no sir. You are the badass.
Cool shoot. Came over here from Tim Morehouse’s blog and I’ll make sure to share on the Fencing.Net forums and get some more visitors over here.
I like using the piste in this – it’s reminiscent of a fencing game we play like “king of the hill”, but it’s “king/queen of the strip” – fencer stays up until defeated by a challenger.