Autumn Fitness Shoot in Hyde Park

A couple of weeks ago I got a call out of the blue from Hanan, a personal trainer working from central London.  We had a little chat about what she wanted (some shots in her home gym and maybe some shots in Hyde Park if the weather was good), and about how I worked.  The conversation ended with her saying she'd call me back to confirm.  Ten minutes later she called back, and the shoot was confirmed for that coming weekend.

I do like it when a shoot "just happens" so quickly.

We did half the shoot inside her gym, and the other half outside in the glorious late afternoon sun in Hyde Park.  The outside shots are both of our favourites.  The lighting, the autumn colours, were all just perfect.

I asked Hanan for a testimonial.  This is what she said.  "These are my thoughts on Michael as a photographer: reliable, friendly, chilled out, professional, serious about quality, genuinely cares about delivering the best service, and giving you the kind of photos you’re after.  Basically, I was really happy with the photos I ended up with.  Get in touch with him, you won’t regret it."

Hanan is currently working updating her website with her shiny new photos, when it's finished I'll update this post with a link. Until then, thank you Hanan for the great shoot, the cup of tea, the healthy biscuit and the salmon sandwich!

My future in fitness photography

I owe much to being involved with photographing fitness for so many years.  Through fitness I learned how to take a decent photo, got my first photo published, and met some great people.

However back in the summer shortly after I wrote my honest review about the FAME UK competition I started to question whether I’d done the right thing or not.  Although though there were lots of positives about FAME, almost immediately I was banned from future Miami Pro events.

This might not seem like a big deal, but I made close to £1000 on the day through selling event photos, which is actually quite a large percentage of my annual turnover.  If I’d have kept my mouth shut then the Miami Pro door would still have been open to me in 2012, and the potential for networking and earning still available.

A few months later came the Fitness Britain finals, and me being told despite agreements being in place for several months that I was the only person attending that wasn’t allowed to take photos (due to Discovery Channel being there filming whats-her-face)...

Tired of all the bullshit in the fitness industry I even thought for a while about walking away from it and concentrating my business elsewhere.

Meanwhile in the background I was chatting with Sarah Donohue about being the primary photographer and involved with an event she was doing in 2012.  Her ideas changed a bit, but ultimately Galaxy Universe was born.

After spending Sunday at the Galaxy Camp in Hooks Gym in London I can see how the “fun” is coming back into fitness.  Lets face it, unless you’re up there on stage, a normal fitness / bodybuilding show that goes on for about 20 hours isn’t exactly “entertaining” to the average punter.

I really enjoyed the challenge of photographing the camp, so much more interesting than stage photos at a fitness show, which basically amounts to taking the same set of photos X number of times where X equals the number of competitors.  The one time I tried to be a bit creative with my event photos this year I ended up getting “told off”.

Meh.

But Galaxy, and all the emotions that come with it, the pain and the laughter, I like.  It gives me something real to photograph.  I’m looking forward to being involved with the build up and the competition in May.
Sarah, thank you for letting me be a part of your dream.

Along with Galaxy, shooting the Gaspari 2012 calendar, and getting my first few photos published in Muscle & Fitness UK, it's given me a renewed interest in the fitness industry.  Here's to making 2012 even better.

Now for a few of my favourite “pain faces” from Sunday.

Walking night photoshoot in London

Something I've wanted to try for a long time is a night shoot, using available light (ie street lighting).  So while I was in London recently with some spare time in the evening I took the opportunity to invite a couple of my favourite models to shoot and made it happen.

After a long day of shooting at Hooks Gym in Royale Park I made my way over to the meeting point, the Park Plaza Westminster Hotel.  Silly me for thinking that traffic on a Sunday evening in London would be fairly light.  90 minutes and 10 miles later I finally arrived.  I hate being late, but on this occasion it worked out just fine, as both models were running later than I was.

My two models for the evening were Ina "talks alot" Gutowska (who I'd recently worked with on the Gaspari calendar shoot) and Emma Burrows, who I'd been shooting with 13 other girls at Hooks Gym for most of the day.  Just so you know who is who, Ina has dark hair, and Emma is the blonde.


Technical bit...  I used the Canon 5D Mark II with a 50mm f1.4 lens for the shoot.  I had it wide open the whole time at f1.4, and went from ISO 400 to 3200 throughout the shoot depending on the levels of light we could find.  As mentioned I only used available light "stolen" from street lamps, shop windows etc.

Trying to auto focus black on black was not easy, next time I think I'll bring along and use a torch to aim at the subject while I'm focussing the shot.  I tried this technique on my experimental self portraits a few days ago and it worked rather well.


I've never done a walking photoshoot of any kind before, but it was rather interesting.  We walked almost 3 miles and stopped to shoot at anywhere we found that we liked the look off, from alley ways, to a Christmas tree in Covent Garden. 

Ina & Emma were great, and thankfully it wasn't that cold (for a Novembers evening).


Most amusing part of the shoot was while we were shooting by the door that "James Bond" walks through on the film "Die Another Day".  He disappears down to an abandoned fictional underground station.  I'm not sure who got the bigger shock when the door opened, the guys coming out, or the girls!

Pole Crazy in Bournemouth

Just one picture of the girls from Bournemouth based Pole Crazy (Pole Dance Classes) for now.

More photos coming soon...

One of Monica Brant’s all time favourite photos

To be told that your photo is a one of someones all time favourites is always a good thing to hear.  When it's from one of the biggest names in womens fitness, someone who has had 10,000's of pictures of her taken, and hundreds published is, at least to me, a pretty big deal.

The photo of Monica Brant was taken in Las Vegas during the Olympia 2010 weekend.  It wasn't taken as part of a photoshoot, just a quick snap as Monica was having her make up touched up before her shoot with Marc Thyssen for the cover of Planet Muscle magazine.

Part of the job description of being a fitness model means that it's your physique that is normally in the spotlight, and photographers aren't normally taking headshots of you.  I think it's one of Monica's favourites because it's different from the norm.

Thank you Monica Brant for sending me a signed copy of the photo.  I hope some day we get to do a shoot for real.

Note:  Please excuse the poor quality photo of the print.  It's just a quick snap taken with my Blackberry.

Training day with Karla Adams

I've done a couple of shoots with Karla Adams over the last few years.  Both in the deserts around Las Vegas.  Some of the photos were recently featured in southern California lifestyle magazine ieStyle.

Congratulations Karla on another great magazine feature.  Looking forward to our third shoot.  :-)

A world exclusive

The location was a freezing cold personal training gym in deepest darkest North London.  My subject for the day was Antony Tagliamonti.  It was so cold that even after several hours of having 2 mini fan heaters going, it still wasn't warm enough to take gloves or fleece jackets off.  Brrr!

These first photos from the shoot feature an invention by gym owner John Fortey (john@innovation-fitness.co.uk 07719 566 126) , and over to him to explain a bit more about it.

"Core Fighter is the ultimate piece of equipment for dynamic sports conditioning. As any Combat athlete knows, it doesn't matter how hard you hit a punch bag or focus pads, it will only improve your technique but do very little to improve the power of a punch or kick as you're not working against any resistance.

Modern combat athletes move in many different directions and have a multitude of directional forces that need to be overcome to generate movement strength. Core Fighter offers the versatility to load those movements in a safe and relatively risk-free manner. Core Fighter also allows the user to generate fast, explosive movement without the need to emphasise to much control on the deceleration phase."

Apparently I am the first photographer to shoot with it, so by default it's a world exclusive!

Here's a quick snapshot taken with my mobile phone showing John and his invention.  Whatever you do don't ever press the big blue button!  Rumour has it that he's going to try and get the machine featured in the next edition of the Angry Birds game!  ;-)

Anyway, enough with my lame attempts at humour, and back to the serious photos with a few more of Antony showing the many ways that John's invention can be used.

Worst weather I've ever had to shoot in

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.

A fitness & gymnastic photoshoot in the New Forest

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...

Fitness & Lingerie photoshoot in a graveyard

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!

On your marks, get set….

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

Larissa Reis – a fitness model in London

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!

 

Fitness Photoshoot at Portland Bill

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.

Published on a gym window in California!

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

A cover to start the new year with

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.

I got to shoot this cover because of a Tilley hat...

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...