Posts Tagged ‘fitness’

Last Wednesday I had a fitness photoshoot with Henrik scheduled.  The day before I checked the weather forecast, it looked bad.  I gave him the chance to re-schedule, but he’d been dieting and training hard for Wednesday, and was travelling at the weekend so re-scheduling wasn’t an option.

The day came, and the weather was indeed awful.  Cold, wet, and windy.  It’s at times like this I wish I had a studio.

So to plan b it was.  We started the shoot in the Bargate Centre multi-storey carpark in the centre of Southampton.  This time instead of holding a reflector, my assistant was holding an umbrella over the camera.  A couple of outfit changes later and we were ready for a hot cup of tea.

Next location was under the car park at the East Street centre.  It was a little odd for me because my Gran used to live right opposite, and I can imagine her looking out of her kitchen window and enjoying the sight of Henrik!

The last location, and the coldest, wettest and windiest of all was near the Itchen Bridge.

Shoot over, we battled through the worst than normal traffic to the DeVere Grand Harbour Hotel where all three of us enjoyed a big fat burger!

It was easily the worst weather I’ve ever had to shoot in, but strangely I still enjoyed the challenge, and I really rather like some of the moody photos.

It’s been 4 years since my last shoot with the lovely Senga & Jess.  Hard to believe it’s been that long, I was still in regular employment back then.  Scary how quickly time passes.

We went to a couple of locations around the New Forest, and got some fun jumping, gymnastic & general bendy shots.

Anyways, enjoy a few of my favourites from the shoot…

Now a graveyard wouldn’t be my first choice of location for a fitness & lingerie shoot, but we were hunting around for a quiet location and came across this old church & graveyard.   It was deserted, and it was just too good to walk away from.

So we didn’t.

Thanks Vikkie for a fun shoot!

One of my favourite shots from my shoot earlier today with fitness model Lisa Cunningham.

The last time I worked with IFBB Figure athlete Larissa Reis was a day after she stepped off stage at Olympia 2009.  Of course she was ripped.  We shot at the dry lake bed just outside of Las Vegas.

For those of you who may not know, strange as it might seem with me living in the UK and generally being a bit of a lardarse,  I’m actually quite an established name in the fitness photography business in Canada and the USA.

I caught up with her again on her recent visit to London.  She was off-season, but still looking fabulous.

The shoot started well, but it didn’t quite go according to plan.   We started in one of the only quiet areas overlooking the Thames and the O2 Arena that I know.  Things were going well until some uptight guy threatened to call the police.  Not because I was shooting Larissa – she was hidden in the car at the time changing, but because my friend and helper for the afternoon Jorge was taking a few photos of his son.

I don’t do stress these days, so we decided to move on and try and find somewhere with Tower Bridge in the background.  That’s when it all started to go a bit “tits up”.  With the southbound Blackwall Tunnel closed the traffic going towards Tower Bridge was horrendous.   It must have taken us about 90 minutes to go little more than 2 miles.  In the end we gave up and restored to plan b.

Plan B was actually always going to happen – going back to Larissa’s posh London hotel and to shoot in her room.  First though steak , chips and beer were calling!

Although I had my lights with me, I wanted to do the hotel shoot using just available light, which as it was now dark meant just the lights already in the hotel room.

I’m pleased with the results.  Hopefully some photos from this shoot will be gracing the pages of a fitness magazine in the near future.

Thank you Larissa.  Always a pleasure to work with you!

Finally it was warm enough to get outside and shoot.  Shooting inside is all well and good, but outside working with natural light is where I’m in my element.

We’d made the long drive down to Portland Bill because I knew it was a fab location.  At first we struggled with the light, the sun was high in the sky, no clouds to soften it, and we didn’t have anyone to hold a reflector.  So we had to pause the shoot, drink tea until the sun was low enough for us to work in direct sunlight and get good results from.

I’d met the model, Cat, at a breakfast networking meeting a few months before.  This was our first shoot.  Although the shoot was mostly fitness, we did do a little bit of fashion and swimwear as well.

Once we got going properly the creativity started to flow and we got some cool shots.

After seeing the proof images Cat said “Put simply, a great day, a great location, UNBELIEVABLE shots“.

NB.  As with all of my shoots no photoshop trickery was used to create the final image.  Everything you see here was as it was.  Captured real time.

Whoop!

I was just sent the above photo by my friend, model, and client Karla Adams.

She’s used the tearsheet (right hand window) from a magazine which featured one of our photos from a shoot in Las Vegas and got it printed up real big for one of the windows of her new gym.

The gym is in Riverside, California.

It looks great Karla! 

www.karlaadams.com

It’s always great to see my work in print, and a cover is that little bit more special.  On the last day of 2009 Fitness and Health magazine arrived on my doormat.  I’ve never heard of it before, but somehow IFBB Bikini Pro Leigh Lingham had and was able to get us the cover of this Netherland publication.

We started the shoot on an overcast British Columbia morning near Iona Beach near to Vancouver International Airport.  We managed about an hour there before being forced to find a new location by all the mosquitoes.  They were more of a nuisance and issue than normal because Leigh was due to step on stage in New Westminster later that day (an event where she was crowned Canada’s first IFBB Bikini Pro).

We moved the shoot to where the cover shot was taken, an industrial area just over the Oak Street Bridge opposite the River Rock Casino.  I prefer shooting in “ugly” locations, to me they are much more interesting than “just another beach”.  When you have a model with the same mindset, you can get some great images as a result.

I predict big things for Leigh in the coming years, she has the attitude to go as far as she wants within the crazy world of fitness and I can only wish her the very best of luck.  I was lucky to be there at the start of her journey and one of her first professional photoshoots and publications.

Leigh and her fiancée Dean are getting married in Las Vegas during 2010.  I had hoped to be their wedding photographer, but alas it was not to be.  I wish them the very best of days though.

The place… the host hotel lobby for the WBFF World Championships in Mississauga. This women pointed at me and the hat and asked if I was Michael Palmer.

The woman was Debbie, owner of Natural Muscle Magazine. I’d known about her and her publication for some years, I’d even tried to make contact a few times but without any success. Within a few minutes we were sitting in the hotel restaurant on our first of several “dates” that weekend.

The following weekend was Olympia in Las Vegas and Debbie had asked me to shoot the cover for her 14th anniversary issue. The concept was simple, getting as many of the previous cover models together and shooting them all at the same time.

The shoot took place early on Friday morning just before the shoots to the Olympia Expo opened. Debbie had asked the master of the group shoot, Fitness America owner Lou Zwick to help us with direction.

Lou was exceptional – easy to see how he’s earned the title of “master of the group shoot”.

The cover, and my first ever published work within the pages of Natural Muscle magazine can be seen below.

Thank you again Debbie for a wonderful opportunity. An opportunity that may not have happened without my wearing my Tilley Hat…