Bikini – What’s Not To Love?

Bikini – What’s Not To Love?

Have you seen a bikini show! Perfectly toned women make their way across the stage as they where on a cat walk in a las vegas club. They are athletic, sassy and provocative and they know it! The confidence these girls show is so enticing, so adorable, so attractive and so entertaining. This is great entertainment, a true show and the overwhelming success the bikini division has leaves little doubt that this is it, now and in the future.

Just as UFC handpicks fights to create the most entertaining fights for the fans, the bikini division is just that – hugely entertaining.

Bikini is what bodybuilding was in the 90’s, its alive, vibrant, it stirs up emotions and its mainstream!

In a world off “likes” and when just about everything is “reviewed” and where the value of your Facebook page is determined in posts and responses bikini hits the mark and hits it good! The bikini girls are getting more publicity in all the magazines than ever before. The bikini girls are getting endorsements. The bikini girls are feminine, they are empowered, they know how to show it off, they smile on stage, whats not to love folks?

Bikini is what figure never was. Bikini is natural and the bikini body is mainstream and everyone wants it, women as well as men. Bikini is a healthy sport and yeah, it’s as much a sport as UFC.

In the UFC you get fights by being entertaining. There is NO system for climbing up the ladder to a title, there is ONLY being entertaining and winning fights as in bikini, there is NO system or criterias, there is ONLY being the most entertaining, most athletic and the best you can ever be and the rest will follow.

Bikini gets it, its fast and fun. Its bigger brother bodybuilding, in all honesty is slooooooow and not so fun, do you really wanna see one more bodybuilding routine? do you really …?

Bodybuilding, get some inspiration from the bikini division! Mandatories first and then a pose down! Thats it. Honestly, judges and audience alike know the top 3 within the first minute of the athletes hitting the stage, you know it, they know it and I know it.

This is 2011. There is no room for a sport not to be entertaining, fast and fun. UFC is fast and fun. Bikini is fast and fun.

I am a bikini fan, I am a UFC fan and I am a Krav Maga practitioner (fast & fun) and I shoot bikini bods in Los Angeles which is very FUN.

Pavel Ythjall

Photos: photo shoot with bikini Champion Sonia Gonzales for FLEX magazine’s “Girls Are Back”. Anca Marcus, bikini competitor and featured in FLEX magazine. Khay Rosemond, bikini competitor and featured in “Treningsforum”, SimplyShredded.com and more.

Props go out to J.M. Manion and the IFBB for creating the bikini division. I believe, in retrospect this will turn out to be one of their biggest contribution to the sport, ever.


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Read more.. Thursday, March 10th, 2011

Every time I shoot I fall in love

Every time I shoot I fall in love

This woman is a racehorse, she is a finely tuned machine waiting to perform, she is a fighter, she has more drive and will to succeed than you and I ever will. She is a sensual, ubersexy, warm and  giving person and now she has entrusted me to document her physique.

She is dressed in minimal torn and ripped clothing, tanned, oiled, sprayed with water and glycerine, all her hard work on display. Its cold, we are in a huge concrete building. R1 Centre in Inglewood is the original mma gym of Los Angeles. A few fighters is shadow boxing in the background. This is real for them and for us.

She is nervous. I am nervous, I am always so fucking nervous. The team is awaiting marching orders …

The whole experience is more physical than anything. Being creative means opening up your inner self for the world to see more of you than you dare, for the world to comment and judge you. Being creative means bleeding, sacrifice, vomiting, being dead tired, overcoming fears and never never never let it shine through while you are shooting …

Time to create magic. True art is created when a positive vibe translates over to the whole team and everyone from the runner, make up, styling, grip and lighting, the photographer, model and art director works together in harmony.

This is what I do and I do it in Los Angeles, The City of Angels. I love my life.

Lets do this.

Pavel Ythjall

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Read more.. Tuesday, March 8th, 2011