Agile and dynamic shots of NYC handball players by the brilliant Thomas Prior

Thomas Prior is one of those sneaky names who first crept onto our radar with a stunning series documenting a firework fight in Tultepec, Mexico, and has since reappeared at six-monthly intervals with new and ever more adventurous projects from around the world. There was February last year, for example, when he photographed the YouTube awards for Vice magazine, and then a few months later he cropped up again with this brilliant series of images taken in Greece and Turkey for Afar magazine.

His new project might be the most interesting yet, however, partly because it’s a personal one, and partly because he’s been wanting to start work on it for eight years, no less. Handball is a series about the handball players of New York City, a ripplingly muscled bunch possessing skill, agility and athleticism that many amateur sportspeople can only dream of. Often shooting them from tricky angles playing beneath a scorching sun, Thomas captures the power implicit in their aggressive postures with an energy matching theirs. Far from complete, this is in fact just a preview of more to come, so stay tuned to his Instagram to see the series develop. If this sneak preview is anything to go by we will not be disappointed.