Sony Artisan Ben Lowy is featured on The New Yorker website with his portraits of college wrestlers. The photos themselves are as much of a contradiction as the athletes he photographed. Meticulously lit and composed yet revealing the underlying pain that the sport can take on its competitors. As Reid Singer writes at the NewYorker.com:

“This constant training causes young wrestlers to look haggard but phenomenally fit, a contradiction that the photographer Ben Lowy captures in his post-match portraits from the weekend’s events. The athletes are required to wear headgear during collegiate matches but not during practice, and the repeated bruising leaves their ears permanently thick and lumpy, their faces bony and hollowed-out, with cheekbones so high their eyes swell like a boxer’s.”

All of the photos were created with the Sony a6300 and the Sony Sonnar T* FE 55mm f/1.8 ZA lens.