"Mothers finest"

The inception of this photo project traces back to a friendly mixed tournament, where we reenacted the match at the bar without masks and equipment. To my surprise, those who dominated the ice with their imposing size and aggressive play turned out to be surprisingly humble boys and girls. This led to the idea of creating an art calendar featuring artistic photos of ice hockey players from the OG Capitals 1 Leeuwarden. In my view, ice hockey remains an underexposed sport in the Netherlands. Initially, I intended to focus on capturing the faces behind the mask, but that changed when they took off their shirts in the studio. In an era dominated by Photoshop and AI filters for making and sharing flawless selfies and portraits online, this approach was ‘analog’, genuine and consequently, quite impactful. The interesting and funny part is that most players are oblivious to how good they actually look. Standing in their gear plain and simple without Photoshop or AI filters. With these portraits, my goal was to capture the raw beauty and expressions of these ice hockey players using only light. I call it “painting with light” or simply the naked truth: ‘What you see is what you get.’ Ivan Pakan, photographer