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Classic Beef  by James Chance

Johnnie Jackson, a professional bodybuilder gets oiled-up in the pump-up room before competing in the the 2009 Arnold Classic. The Classic, founded by former bodybuilder Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, is now in its 21st year and is considered to be the greatest prize in bodybuilding. 13 competitors compete over two rounds for the $130,000 first prize.

 

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42 thoughts on “james chance – classic beef”

  1. This is great!! I love the color. I think the clinical aspect of the hands and the gloves adds a very strange appeal to this photo.
    Is this part of a series ??

  2. This photo is a bit bizarre…
    I don’t know how I feel about it..
    uncomfortable..
    maybe its the undies…
    i just don’t know..
    **

  3. James, this is one of my favorite shots from this series. Yes, folks there is a multimedia piece on James’ website from which this photo was taken. It’s worth the trip to go over and see it.

    Patricia

  4. kathleen fonseca

    wow, what is NOT to like?? this thing’s full tilt ball’s out bad. On every level i am just snapping my head back and forth to clear my vision and keep the impressions hitting me at once in orderly progression past my eyeballs.

    THIS photo following so closely on the heels of “Pieces of Us” by Rafal..oooh..love the juxtaposition, DAH! David, you are like this crazy smart DJ blowing our minds on the dance floor. Whatever Rafal’s intimate views of family life were, this one’s completely the opposite. Rafal clearly loves and lusts after his wife’s body. He thinks she’s quite the hottie and he’s not ashamed of sharing that with others who might not have the purest of intentions. Because we can palpably feel his desire for his wife, we feel some of that too. It rubs off on us. He looks and touches. We look and we can’t touch. It’s quite an intriguing tease.

    But this..There’s flesh, there’s a very hot body. There’s touching in a provocative manner, with oil no less. And if that were not enough, there’s the inter-racial tension going on. There’s a sexy transparency in her long sleeves and a sexy bulge in her beehive to match his sexy bulge. But this photo’s about as sexy as a dog peeing on a fire hydrant. She’s like a nun tending her Lord before Mass. A virgin in latex..please, don’t let me feel this, i don’t want to know sin. I’m just doing my job here. Please don’t tempt me, please don’t take my purity. She even keeps her eyes averted. He’s the dispassionate Christ figure, the martyr in a loin cloth, the perfect figure of a man, arms lifted and spread metaphorically, being oiled and adorned for the show, the crucifixion. The crowd, the judges, the lions restless, greedy, hungry for the excess that’s about to begin. Will they cheer? will they jeer? will they tell him to get the hell outta here? Or will he win, will he be redeemed to become God the father of bodybuilding?

    phew…i think this is about all i can stand for one night..my head is reeling..James, fantastic, fantastic photograph. kudos to you!!!

  5. panos skoulidas

    …. just came back from the hospital…. im so wired…… i cant sleep…………..
    and then i saw this photo……… i laughed… still laughing…
    when i saw the disgust in the face of the “dominatrix/latex fetish lady”…………..
    she looks ready to throw up………..
    and im not gonna blame her………..
    and i thought that i was the only one having a bad day here………………….
    i hope she’s getting paid for this….
    ohh you made me laugh…
    pure comedy!

  6. Interesting photograph James, great content, composition and lighting, The vignette around the women’s head is a little obvious but not a problem for me: you showed what you wanted to show and I like it.

    Good to see some more of your work here on Burn: no rules say you can’t submit more than once people!

    Also good to see the male of the species getting the preen!

    Good light,

    Mike.

  7. Really weird… Tried again this morning. Is anybody else not seeing this picture at all? (but Rafal’ s essay is there, down below)

  8. Herve:

    me neither actually…..f…im blind to it too….maybe my eyes are burned out ;))…

    wild funny surreal stuff for sure, the colors, composition (espcially dig the greens and whites) are like one of those spookey horror films…all the elements are wild, but it doesnt resonate for me…but that’s cool…….

    no worries…

    running
    b

  9. I’m pleased that the image evoked a rather uncomfortable (and in Panons’ case) humorous reaction. The body building word is a bizarre one, and it was my hope to create a rather dark, surreal, slightly seedy place for these guys with my images.

    Kathleen, I really enjoyed your comment, thanks! You know i’m not sure about the relationship between the two, they appeared close and laughed and joked as she did her work. I think there were together as she didn’t “work” on anyone else, but if she is his partner or employee, I don’t know.

    Herve, don’t know mate?… strange. The series is on my site if your curiosity get the better of you.

    Panos, sorry to hear your news, I hope things are more positive today. Glad this provided a moments light relief in such a difficult situation. All the best.

  10. James – there are a lot of elements that make me want to keep staring at the photograph: color, shadows, texture, his eyes,the intense lighting around his eyes and the deemer light framing his body. What kind of light did you use? I agree with Patricia – I like this one best of the series that you have in your website. Thanks for sharing!

  11. Hi Mariana. I have rigged a system with my camera strobe for super-soft light using a diffuser and an umbrella. I generally use this for portrait shoots, but it is also very light and portable so I can use it for random shooting too (providing I can get someone to hold it! Thanks Andy!!) ;).

  12. It’s interesting to me that you decided to burn in the top around the woman (with a rather bluntly obvious brush), yet you left the distracting machinery behind his butt mildly visible. Think I’d have gone about it the other way around. Less obvious top burn, and burn to total black behind his ass. Not that I stupidly insist on that, just saying what I’d do.

  13. Cool, James. I went to see it, still not knowing which pix was shown here. Superb work, portrait wise, you did with light what they did with weights, ie. sculpting their body. Hackneyed subject, but I think a good part of photography is actually, even naturally doing many subjects over and over again. It doesn’t have to amount to repetition in itself. Therefore, thumbs up for me!

  14. james, without your liner notes it could be taken at some love motel as well… well, in that case the clinic gloves would add something really bizarr. i like it for it´s ambigiuty, one can read a lot in it, white mature woman under black posing stud, oiling him without daring skin contact, tough stuff.
    and 130.000 seems way more attractive to go for than a sloppy 10.000 emerging photographers grant ;)

  15. james: in between stretches, just walked in, gotta walk out, but wanted to let you know I did look at the essay (long before the pic went up yesterday) and my comment above is in no relationship to the entire body of work…u know me, i aint a single-pic guy to begin with (almost dont even process photography in ‘singles’)..but with regard to seeing a single pic, that has so many nice elements (the weird surreal color, the even weirder and more odd relationship between this white ‘nurse’ and the young black bodybuilder)….i hope u were not upset…collision and ambiguity is what i dig about pics and it’s here….anyway….hope to see u in 2009….flying, b

  16. Interesting light… sort of surreal and a sci-fi look about it. I can’t imagine being there to photograph the scene. I wouldn’t mind seeing it tightly cropped (no pun intended) with no background at all. James, have you shown this shot to the subjects? Do you get a model release or give them prints?? I must say, it’s taken me several viewings to get used to it… an unusual shot though… very good.

  17. I agree with Stupid Photographer about the burn job. Definitely an interesting image with emotion. Makes me want to see more. I find the woman’s face to be a little blown out which distracts me from the glove which to me is the more important detail.
    Nice work

  18. hi james..
    i like the rest of the work on your site when i looked after your essay went up and i really like the story of the night.. a good selection of publishable photos which say more than if you´d been stuck in ´the pit´ stage front..
    similar to others here about the burning in.. hardly terminal though as it is a good snap.

    d

  19. Kudos to James to getting not only an essay published here on BuRN, but also a single still. I don’t know that this occurance has happened until now. How I feel about this photo…I’m just going to echo Kathleen Fonseca on, well, her entire reaction…”what she said.” And Bravo, again, to James Chance…this time for showing us diverse work and that you don’t live in a box…or that you would ever put yourself in one, photographically…you seem curious about strange worlds that exist within ours, and you explore them, showing us something different and evoking a different feeling every time. I love that your work is versatile, James…talent across genres. But back to the pic at hand…I just want to know, who won the competition?

  20. Having gone through the archives, I see that there have been a few photogs who’ve had a select photograph and an essay published (Anton, Medford Taylor, and Chris Bickford). And now James Chance.

  21. Sorry had family in town so have been away from the ‘pooter…

    STOOP, MATT. Have to agree about the toning. Bit of a “dodge-y” (hehe) burn. Only excuse is that the image was being filed on a deadline so was rather rushed. Have to say I didn’t notice too bad on my monitor… but after seeing it on another (brighter) screen it does look rather rough. Don’t mind the equipment in the background too much personally, feel it adds context and depth.

    MIKE. No the guys haven’t seen the images, and this was editorial, so no model releases either. Not sure where the images will end up at this stage. Maybe they will see them later down the line?… I do give prints away regularly when working on my own projects, but this was more of a media event, and these guys are very used to getting their picture taken so haven’t in this case.

    BOB. No need to explain my friend, although it was rather sweet ;)

    ROSS. What’s Anadrol!?

    CARRIE. Thank you. Yes, I have to admit I do enjoy the weird and wonderful. The comp was won by Kai Greene, who (bless him) sobbed and sobbed when his name was announced. Another surreal, but very sweet image that evening. Sadly our friend Johnnie didn’t rank.

    MICHAEL. Sorry about that!

    Erik. Time to start training. The $130,000 will be up for grabs again next year!

  22. The equipment behind his ass would add context and depth, if it were more readable as weight-lifting gear. It isn’t, clearly readable as such. And it is white, so like all bright objects within an image frame, the jumbled pieces of white pull our eyes into the dark corner, without a payoff waiting there. My stupid eyes go, “Hey, what’s that bright stuff in the corner? Oh, some stupid gear.” By then I’ve been disconnected from the actual core of your image, and it takes me wasted time and effort to get back to the heart of it.

  23. I see a little Ying-Yang between the body builder and the equipment Stoop; another layer. I like the depth of the photograph: don’t want it all served up all at once.

    Best,

    Mike.

  24. @ gordon and andrew:

    wheww… i thought ive lost my eye-balls somewhere. i have NOT been able to see this picture for days… this showed up once but went on spring break and i had to go through mr. chance’s website to see what everybody else meant. two computers i used, same thing, other pictures loaded up fine.

    must james ‘pooter need more coffee?

    plato’s out playing with philographers in some other city and might not have noticed the beef usurped by a black hole. i forget who’s the techno-greek

  25. Ok, don’t think it’s just me…can’t see this on any of my machines. Never have been able to, which is especially odd since it was getting comments while I couldn’t see it…

  26. kathleen..I love what you saw in this photo. I am not easily led or swayed but I’m completely going for the ride with you on this one..thank you for the scintillating perspective, even if it was outside of the reality.

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