The story of Wrestle Me
Added 2022-06-30 22:53:54 +0000 UTCThis shoot was quite an adventure. Back in the day when I had a blog, one of these two guys got in touch and said they'd be interested in doing a photo shoot. He and his partner are really chill, masculine (without pretension) gay guys from the same part of Sydney as I live.
We caught up for a coffee and talked about ideas. I wasn't photographing anywhere near as much then (2009) as I am now and was really excited that people wanted to model for me. We decided to go and try and do a shoot in the sand dunes at Kurnell in one of Sydney's southern areas, so we all took off early one morning and as we parked the car and walked towards the dunes we knew our plans might need some tweaking.
Because the dunes are fairly close to residential areas and there are lots of clear space, there were outdoor personal training groups, football teams and all sorts of people running up and down the dunes, walking the trails and just enjoying their morning. There was no way we were going to get away with two naked men wrestling in the sand.
After a bit of exploring we found a spot that was going to be good enough. It wasn't clear rolling dunes like the first plan but it was very typical Australian beachside dunes with scrubby vegetation and enough privacy for the guys to get their gear off and roll around.
I'm not at all familiar with wrestling so didn't know how to direct them but in the end I think we got some great shots and many years later I released Wrestle Me as a download.
