A review of LJ's Black + White pics
Wednesday 23 June 2004
Summary of the written article
* She was teased about her height at school (nearly 6'0 at 13, 6'5 at 15) but that gave her motivation to succeed.
* Tom Maher compares her to Sir Donald Bradman (legendary Australian cricketer).
* She signs only one year contracts in the US.
* Spend a lot of time on the New South Wales south coast - surfing, painting and writing poetry.
* Reason for posing - to step into the spotlight with no clothes in order to conquer a fear of the spotlight.
* Quote - "I felt like "breaking out"... showing another side to the stereotypical basketball player in shorts... I'm not going to have a body forever. I was scared, really nervous, but it's very tasteful. I'm a little bit worried about what people will think. I'm not going to tell Dad!"
A look at the photos:
Unlike the cover, all of LJ's photos are in black and white.
The first one is a similar pic to that of the cover but has her looking down, instead of smiling at the camera as on the cover.
The second has her facing the camera in an open legged, aggressive stance with her holding a ball (the one seen on the preview pic on the website) which covers her groin area.
The third pic has her facing the left with her body side-on to the camera. She is in the air - looks a bit like a left handed layup with the left arm outstretched upwards.
The fourth pic takes up two pages and has her body facing the camera but her face tilted away to the right, eyes closed (almost demure). She is holding a big (wire?), white/silver ball which dominates the right of the pic. The pic is accompanied with the quote "I'm a competitor. I really want to win. At one stage I was too small, I had no muscle. (But) I knew that I'd be the best."
I suppose the quote is make a point about her physical evolution and her drive to win. She's definitely a lot different from the LJ of 2000/01.
The fifth pic has her facing the camera, side on. She has her left hand on her body and the right hand is holding the white ball behind her.
The sixth pic is the pic you can see on the Studio Magazines website.
The seventh pic has her looking right, away from the camera and it looks like she's about to bowl the black ball (ten pin bowling style!).
I love these pics. LJ has put a lot of work into putting on muscle in the last couple of years and the results look great. Sometimes we forget the sheer physical beauty of athletes and flicking through the magazine is a great reminder.
People overseas can buy this mag from the official website. A lot of the sports are represented - track and field, swimming, softball, diving, rowing, equestrian, gymnastics amongst others.