Athletes

Athletes is a photographic publication by Anderson & Low that explores the athletic body as a site of strength, discipline, and visual abstraction.

Rather than documenting sport as competition or spectacle, the photographers focus on the physical presence of athletes, emphasizing form, tension, and surface.

The images isolate bodies from their functional context, transforming muscle, posture, and gesture into sculptural elements. Shot with a controlled, highly stylized photographic language, the athletes appear both monumental and detached, situated between classical ideals of the body and contemporary visual culture. Movement is often suspended, allowing the viewer to concentrate on anatomy, balance, and corporeal detail.

By removing narrative and individual biography, Athletes presents the sporting body as an archetype—at once powerful and vulnerable. The book positions photography as a tool for examining the aesthetics of discipline, endurance, and control, aligning athletic imagery with traditions of portraiture, sculpture, and conceptual photography.