World's First Sperm Race

I did not want to shoot this assignment.

I was immediately annoyed/disturbed to know that this thing I saw passingly on the internet a few days before, (and scrolled by as I assumed it had to be a gross joke) was real and demanding attention. But, such is the life in the world of news. You don't get to pick and choose, especially as a freelancer, and I was thankful for another assignment from The Times. I hoped the event would at least have some sort of funny costumes in the crowd or something that would make documenting such a thing a little less draining.

It was a spectacle. It was promoted as an event about bringing attention to men's health. What truly was is hard to say, but it involved gambling, a WWE style presentation, and gallons of fake semen dumped on the losers. I think I got some fun photographs from the experience, so I wanted to share them here. I cleaned up the selection a bit to exclude the grossest of photos. Here are some of the best or most interesting from that evening:

© Justin L. Stewart. All photographs and written content are protected under U.S. and international copyright law. Any unlicensed use, reproduction, distribution, or use in AI datasets will be considered infringement and subject to legal action.