I also began exhibiting fine art photos in two museums and a number of photo galleries, leading, I hope, to enhancing the importance and prestige of bodybuilding and the aesthetic bodybuilding physique to the mainstream world outside of the sport.Īcceptance for these women has been slow. This led to my having two art books published: THE WOMEN: Photographs of the Top Female Bodybuilders (Artisan) and Modern Amazons (Taschen). There was a series of special features in Flex called Power and Sizzle containing my artistic photos of the women. Joe was happy to publish many of the images in his magazines. After all, we have artistic images of muscular males going back thousands of years, but this kind of female body has only existed since the 1970s.

I believe they are extremely important in what they tell us about the potential of the female body and the implications they create regarding gender identity, physical morphology, and so much more about our culture and its history. This was especially true when I photographed female bodybuilders and fitness/figure competitors. With Joe’s encouragement, I began thinking in terms of shooting photos with similar iconic potential. The Blonde Bomber Dave Draper, on the beach with models, like Betty Weider. Shots of Steve Reeves in the mountains, holding a sword overhead or as Hercules. When I first started working for Joe, I became aware of a number of iconic bodybuilding photos. The result would often be six- or eight-page photo features or longer, including centerfolds and fold-out posters. He would sometimes spend more on a given photo shoot than a competitor would on the photos for a complete issue. He spared no expense in making Muscle & Fitness and Flex the preeminent magazines in the industry. Joe also spent a lot of effort identifying, recruiting and encouraging young photographers from the world of bodybuilding itself. At various times, Joe hired several Hollywood celebrity photographers, a veteran fashion photographer from Harper’s Bazaar, and one who had been chief photographer at Playboy. I had the privilege of working closely with Joe Weider for decades, and one of the things I observed that made his magazines so successful was his insistence on publishing first-rate photos by really excellent photographers.

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