Agency France Presse staff photographer Philippe Lopez takes a behind the scenes look at the 2012 International Bodybuilding and Fitness Invitation Championship which was held in Hong Kong. Participants, who darken their skin with tanning products and apply oils to increase shine, do a series of mandatory poses and display their best shaped muscles to a panel of judges who assign points based on their appearance.
Human fascination with the inner workings of our bodies spans our collective history. Luckily, with recent collaborations between the scientific and artistic communities, exhibits featuring authentic, stripped down (as in to the bone) bodies in various poses and levels of dissection have been striving to satiate our curiosity.
While the photos in this collection may be too graphic for some viewers, exhibits from the Human Body Exhibition to Gunther von Hagens’ Body Worlds promote the inner beauty and anatomical wonders of the human body. Some go as far as scattering assistants and med students around the show floor to answer questions, while others offer viewers a front row seat to an actual organ dissection.
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