Posts Tagged fitness
One Year Ago Today
Posted by Ryan in On Location, Pretty Girls on September 24, 2009
This is a previously unseen photo from my September 24, 2008 photoshoot with Brandi Latimer. This was three days after Brandi’s first fitness competition. Much like this September, the weather was amazingly hot when we shot — I somehow think this is Mother Nature’s way of rewarding us for our hideous winters.
Swimwear: Mayra Collection.
Marketing Lessons from This Weekend
Posted by Ryan in Uncategorized on April 12, 2009
As mentioned in my last post, I attended the first annual Fitness STAR competition in Toronto, at the Palais Royale on Lake Ontario. It was a long day (nearly 11 hours) and I shot 975 images (worth 14.9GB of space on my hard drive).
Fitness STAR put a call out for photographers to come and shoot the show, on the condition that we give Fitness STAR a number of images they can use for promotion.
Late in the day, a photographer sat down next to me and asked what camera I was shooting with. This is a common question — photographers are constantly trying to one up another with their toys or the size of their lenses. I told him I was shooting with a Nikon D200. He then remarked, “Wow. If I’m not getting paid, I’m not going to bother bringing my good camera or trying very hard. That’s why I only have this XTi. [A mid-range Canon model]”
This struck me as odd. He was basically saying that he has no interest in making a good impression. What if the organizers are looking to hire someone to shoot the next competition, come across your lousy photos, and immediately dismiss you as a result? All because you weren’t getting paid. Which makes me wonder — why were you there in the first place?
Photography is a business like any other, which means that marketing is crucial. Some businesses donate money to charity, some give away coupons for discounts or free products or services, some partner with other local businesses… and it’s all done in the name of promoting your enterprise. Essentially you’re sacrificing something for the goodwill and sales that you’ll reap the benefit of down the road.
Right?
Above: Justine Munro in her first-ever fitness competition. She won in her category (Level 1 Athletic Tall).
Brandi Lee Latimer
Posted by Ryan in Uncategorized on April 12, 2009
It’s not quite ready to unleash on the world yet, but Brandi Lee Latimer’s new and improved website is coming soon.
In the meantime, enjoy this photo of Brandi from Saturday’s Fitness STAR competition in Toronto. Brandi placed first in her category (Level 2 Athletic).
Jodi Renee
Posted by Ryan in Uncategorized on October 27, 2008
I first met Jodi in 2005 when she contacted me via my website. She was training for a fitness competition at the time, so we coordinated a shoot on the day of the competition, during a break in the action, in fact! I picked her up downtown at the Convention Centre and we navigated the horrendous downtown traffic to the east-end Beaches location that I love so much.
It was a hot — nay, sweltering — day in June and we were shooting at high noon which only made it worse. Mid-day sun is also the worst for photography, creating harsh, unflattering shadows on the face. Jodi’s tanning spray, necessary for the bright stage lights of the competition, had already started to melt off her skin after just a few minutes in the intense 31°C heat.
My equipment at the time was modest: I set up a Nikon SB-800 flash on a tripod close to Jodi, and used my Nikon D70 to trigger it wirelessly using Nikon’s awesome Creative Lighting System. Under the right conditions, this system works fairly well. But under the challenging conditions described above, it was much more of a chore to get everything working as it should. Any wireless flash system that relies on an optical trigger will often fail if there is an abundance of bright light, such as the sun. What this meant is that I couldn’t be much more than about five feet away from the flash, otherwise it wouldn’t fire properly (or at all!). I had to use a lens with a fairly short focal length (for me, anyway) since I was standing so close to Jodi. The 85mm lens that I chose meant a lot of 3/4-length shots and not much else — full-lengths were out of the question since I couldn’t move away from the flash.
Jodi’s yellow bikini top ended up being overexposed in most of the photos due to my inability to properly control the light in the difficult conditions. The SB-800 did an admirable job, filling in all the harsh facial shadows.
A photo from this series was eventually published in the January 2006 issue of Maxim magazine, which is awesome considering the difficult constraints we faced in terms of time and light. Despite what the Maxim headline reads, Jodi was not my girlfriend, but that’s a story that I’ll share in the future.
Today, Jodi has transitioned from model to big-shot people photographer. I’ve assisted her on many weddings over the last three years or so, and she does a phenomenal job photographing families and kids. See for yourself at Jodi Renee’s blog and her website.