Like everything, the Olympic Games have been influenced by technology. An athlete’s success no longer relies on natural talent or training alone but on the improvements that are engineered through technology and science. But for all of the advancement, all of the ability to use pressure-monitors and tracking devices and cameras to make improvements invisible to the naked eye, the beauty of the games lies elsewhere.
In the moment that a runner crosses the line first, or the gymnast makes a perfect landing, in the moment when a swimmer takes the podium to collect Gold, the avid spectator isn’t thinking about how they worked to get one hundredth of a second faster, or why the angle of their body allowed them to do it. They’re swept up in the glory and patriotism, the excitement and exhilaration. It’s only the what that matters.
That’s why, amongst the inevitable and necessary avalanche of Olympic-theme photoshoots to surface in 2012, the most memorable are the ones that ignore the cold hard science and focus on the beauty of the body and the nostalgia of the games. Joanna Kustra’s shoot The Olympians does just that. The styling by Marcin Kulak isn’t centered around sportswear but around a mix of modern fashion that nods to the Ancient Greeks. The colouring of the photos subtly adds to the vintage romance; a romance of something beyond sponsorship and science, in which Kustra’s Olympians are winners, and Gods.
View the full shoot by Joanna Kustra (joannakustra.com) at the gallery above.
