Howard Schatz and Beverly Ornstein: The Different Body Types of Olympic Athletes


Turn on your television nowadays and it's likely that you'll stumble onto some news of the London 2012 Olympics. Looking at the sports individually, it would seem like all athletes have the same muscular body type, but when seen side by side, their differences are astounding. The different body types of Olympic athletes is presented in glorious detail by Howard Schatz and Beverly Ornstein.


Howard Schatz and Beverly Ornstein's images have graced the pages of different publications including Time, The New Yorker, Sports Illustrated and many, many others. Their photographs have also been exhibited in museums worldwide.

The photographers have covered all kinds of portraiture subjects, from athletes to pregnant mothers to dancers. Going through these different images and projects, it becomes easy to see their signature style: efficient and creative use of studio lights to illuminate the beauty and grace of the human body.


Athlete is the culmination of Schatz and Ornstein's previous work on the human body. After finding inspiration in the graceful form of dancers, the photographers turn to athletes. Unlike dancers however, these sports specialists show off the beauty of the body in different shapes and sizes.

Schatz and Ornstein show off the variability in the human species, from the smallest ice skaters to the tallest basketball players. The similarities and differences are even more obvious with the backdrop, attire and lighting used in these photographs: Athletes wearing simple black undergarments against a plain black backdrop. If you're wondering where your own body fits in all of these magnificent specimens of humanity, check out this Olympic athlete body match on the BBC website.


In some cases, the build difference is interesting but expected: high jumpers tower over gymnasts and marathon runners are lithe compared to bodybuilders. What's surprising is the variety in builds even in the same category: Some athletes in the weightlifting category look twice the size of their colleagues while in synchronized swimming, the swimmers have almost the same body size.

The difference in muscle and fat distribution also becomes more obvious: weightlifters have huge shoulders while runners are almost skeletal compared to everyone else. It would take many days to write down the similarities and differences of these Olympians, which goes to show how well planned and executed these portraits are. Howard Schatz and Beverly Ornstein should receive their own gold medal for this laudable Olympic project.


This is Howard Schatz and Beverly Ornstein's website. All images were taken from Nina Matsumoto's blog where you'll find more body size comparisons. Schatz's collaboration with Ornstein on the different body types of Olympic athletes can be found in the book Athlete. They also has a number of other publications, including Nude Body Nude and At the Fights: Inside the World of Professional Boxing.


Update Jan 2023: Check out Howard Schatz other works on boxers, pregnant mothers and kink here.



Comments

  1. Some of those comparisons are freaky and amazing!

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  2. weightlifting is honestly the gayest sport. lol try to find that weightlifting comedian who goes on a rant about that. its quite funny, and its not disrespectful cause he lifts too

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  3. Ah this is curiosity. What I thrive off of every day. Wonderful to see something like this, the dedication too pull something like this is more than I would have

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  4. Bart is mad because someone who lifts weights slept with his woman.

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  5. Bart, what's a matter, little baby. Maybe you find it gay because you get turned on watching them. I think that about sums it up for you.

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  6. LOVE LOVE LOVE this photo collection. Thank you for the work you have done, and for sharing it with the world!

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  7. Who are the athletes in the last photo? Their names , heights and weights are not listed. I recognize Dominik Hasek (center) and Emmanuel Yarborough (second from right), but don't know who the other athletes are.

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  8. ... bbbbut it's not fair. s/off

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  9. Excellent work, I loved, wonderful!!

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  10. Great idea and photos, but it's too bad the labels are impossible to read.

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  11. Body building is not and never has been an olympic sport.

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