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!

A fitness photoshoot in Basingstoke

As anyone who read my Twitter status updates on Sunday afternoon will know, Basingstoke is not exactly one of my favourite cities.  To say I dislike the city would be an understatement.  Of course it wasn't helped by my stupid Tomtom sat nav taking me to the wrong place, and then me driving aimlessly around trying to find the gym we were to meet at shoot at.

To make matters worse, I'd forgot to ask for the mobile number for my subject, Darren Essex and he didn't have mine either.

Anyhow, ever-so-slightly stressed and an hour late I finally found Darren and the gym.  I'm normally early for everything, but Darren was thankfully cool about my tardiness.

My favourite photo from the shoot is above, shot only with daylight coming in from a window to Darren's left.

Special thanks to Georgiana for helping out throughout the shoot!

Fitness & Dance Photoshoot at Portland Bill

Last week I had the pleasure of working with two wonderful models in Portland Bill.  The first of which was Elena.   Models who have dance training make for some of the best models, they know how to move and create beautiful shapes for the camera.  Elena was one of the best I've worked with, and I love some of the jump / dance photos we did.

The shoot was ended prematurely by a dirty great big grey cloud spoiling our light, but we'd done most of what we wanted to do, and I'm really happy with the results.

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 the BodyPower Expo

The look on Tara's face when I told her we'd be doing the fitness photoshoot she'd booked for the BodyPower Expo at the NEC in the car park was priceless.  Granted it wasn't a perfect location, but it was away from the majority of the crowds, and it worked.

The above is my favourite from the quick taster shoot we did.

I'm offering more of my taster fitness photoshoots this coming weekend while the FAME UK event taking place at the Excel Centre.

For more information - http://fitnessphotoshoot.eventbrite.com

Video Blog - Fitness Photoshoot

Words really aren't needed, but as a brief introduction - this is a video blog filmed during my first outdoors fitness photoshoot of 2010.  Location was the stunning Portland Bill in Dorset.  The model was the wonderful Cat.   To see some of the photos from the shoot...  click....       here!

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.