Before entirely switching up my diet and starting to "bulk up", I thought it would be a great idea to preserve some of the shape I was in for posterity, well, at least on film/photo.
The physique was there, time could be made and I was already practicing my "Blue Steel" pose, so all I needed was a photographer.
By sheer coincidence that problem was also solved pretty quick.
At the Delaware Championship, I started talking to the show photographer, Jim Wilmer, and during our conversation, it turned out that he was also doing private photo shoots.
We both expressed our interest in working together and immediately scheduled a shooting for the Tuesday after my last competition.
I figured that after 26 weeks of strict dieting what would an additional three day matter. I was dead wrong. Once the competition was over, these three days turned out to take forever. Even though in theory I was not restricted by my contest diet anymore and "free" to eat whatever I felt like, I had to get even more stringent for this short period, in order to maintain my stage physique as good as possible.
To stay lean and dry I forewent my "cheat meals" following the competition and ate beyond "clean" Sunday and Monday. My meals basically consisted of chicken, broccoli and lettuce.
Despite numerous showers, I still had a coat of spraytan from Saturday's competition left on my skin, so no extra tanner or lotion were needed for the shooting. The color was now, three days afterwards, much lighter, almost like a natural tan and I looked like I just got back from a Caribbean vacation.
Looking at myself in the mirror Tuesday morning I appeared just a tiny bit fuller than Saturday. The extra sacrifice had actually paid off and I was ready to have "some" pictures taken.
Well, we ended up with over 600!!! that day.
This number shouldn't actually come as a surprise, since the photo shoot took place both indoors, as well as outdoors, and in a wide variety of different outfits.
Jim Wilmer has been working with bodybuilders and physique models for decades and his experience can definitely be seen in the quality of work he delivered. It was a pleasure working with him that day and the pictures came out great.
Now that the shoot is over I can finally enjoy myself for a bit and eat some of the foods I had to deny myself of for the past 6 months, before I start preparing for next year.
"I'm pretty sure there's a lot more to life than being really, really, ridiculously good looking.
And I plan on finding out what that is."
Derek Zoolander
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| Blue Steel |
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| Le Tigre |
A special Thank You to Jim Wilmer for these great pictures, and now I shall EAT!!!
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