#max ison

Max Ison

‘Vacuum’ by Daniel Jaems

He did it while I wasn’t looking. In the pause between set-up. While the strobes were off and I was resetting my sun. He pulled his ribs toward his spine in front of a mirror and made space inside himself. A literal emptiness. A vacuum.

It was elegant, violent, unnecessary, spontaneous. His body caved inward with the grace of something craving a spotlight. I think I said something like "Fu*king hell!" and "Hold that." As his body collapsed, controlled like a cobra. I'd not shot the body in this way before. With such gluttony for classical bodybuilding.

He went further. And further again, up to 100% vacuum. Until his anatomy no longer looked like it belonged to him but to something else. Something between the myth of a man and a warning label.

At full power, he looked like a Roman statue carved by someone on the verge of madness. And in the rage, chiseled and cracked away at the belly. "Is that painful?" Max: "Not at all." "Shall we do it a bit less?" It was... too much. Beautiful, but too precise. Too clean to be real, too unreal for the average audience.

We settled on this version, here. Call it 40% Vacuum.

Human enough. Technical enough. Digestible. Enough.

Max Ison