The image was created for a story about extreme video gaming becoming a worldwide spectator sport. The client was Men's Journal magazine, and the art director was Michael Lawton. The brief was open-ended. I was asked to create an image that evoked a futuristic gladiator. Michael had seen other images in my book that suggested this direction. I have been interested in the man-machine mix for a very long time. My inspiration came from sci-fi books and movies. I used a 500 MHz dual processor Mac G4, shot with Hasselblad and Bronica (some elements with one, some with the other). In this case the scans were done by the magazine, and the software was Photoshop, of course.