The Gym Can Be Sexy...

People in the gym, all sweaty, breathing hard, getting hot... Stimulating!


So I decided to shoot this series with Eric and Jessica from Anytime Fitness in Cathedral City, California. It has a whole different workout feeling, don't you think?


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Me At Work With Bodybuilder, Robert Hatch...

I am the guy with the camera!


This was shot in the mirror at the Power of Fitness Gym in Palm Desert California. Gyms are full of mirrors, of course. The camera is a Mamiya 645AFDII shooting Tri-X 400 pushed 2 stops, for you photography interested folks.

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I Am Again Honored :)

SportsShooter is a respected community of photographers from around the world. Not just shooting sports but photographers covering wars, the White House or for that matter Little League, the Olympics and the SuperBowl. A diverse group from community newspaper photographers to people from Sports Illustrated and USA Today. As a member of SportsShooter I am very excited to have my coverage of the just prior posted workout series here on my Blog with Robert Hatch make the front page yesterday.


You can see the series on SportsShooter here.

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Workout Photo Shoot

Photography at bodybuilding competitions is what most people think of when they ask about what I shoot most of the time. And actually that is not the case.

I spend most of my time in the gym, photographing my subjects working out. My preference is real life gyms and real workouts as opposed to studio gyms and fake weights. Yes there really are fake weights.

Having spent many years myself lifting weights, studying the subject and working with others has given me the advantage of knowing how to really put people through a workout that is technically correct and photo friendly.

This is a series of photographs shot for one of the bodybuilding magazines with my friend Robert Hatch, a long time bodybuilder and just plain impressive human being at 6 ft tall and 258 pounds.


205 pound curls is not something I would have most people do in a photo shoot. But Robert Hatch is big enough to make it look good.


Robert Hatch doing dumbbell curls with 50's is heavier than I would do with most people. But Hatch is a big guy.


Regardless of how much weight you are lifting, a hard contraction at the top of the movement puts a real strain on the muscle. Rob really hits it with his arms.


I prefer incline dumbbell bench press. It is less dangerous with heavy weights, you can turn them out and have them not fall on you. Here Rob is putting up a pair of hundreds.


Shoulder shrugs build the traps, the muscles at the top leading from your shoulders to your neck. Rob grabbed a pair of 150's, big weight for a big guy


Taking a stop between exercises I shoot a few posed photographs. It also gives Rob a rest.


Taking a break from lifting for a moment, I shoot these posed shots around the equipment nearby.


Working through the photo shoot workout can be a lot of effort. With Rob I am shooting him with heavier weights to have it match his 6 ft 258 pound body. Here you can see he is wearing down a little while we do seated back rows.


We do get in a change of clothes, maybe a few times. And that requires going back and doing some more work. Rob did a few preacher bench curls and it looked good. But he was working hard.


A few body poses to show off the hard work Robert Hatch has done over the years.

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Is That Photoshop?

"Is That Photoshop?" seems to be the question as photographers we get very often these days. The other comment we hear as a question is "You must have a really good camera?". Both are interesting comments based on the commonality of digital photography. And of course it discounts the actual consequence of actually being capable of and having the vision to take a good photograph.


"Is That Photoshop?" Well the answer for almost every photograph taken in the last few years is YES! Whether shooting film or digital almost every photo ends up on a computer where the Photoshop program is used to process it for one reason or another. This is not unlike what was done in a darkroom. Film was pushed, cross processed, prints were burned and dodged, even hand colored. It is and was all part of the creative process and shooting a photograph. When I shoot certain photos, I take into consideration how I am going to want it to look, how I will light it, expose it and then what I will be doing in final editing to finish the photograph as I imagine it.

"You must have a really good camera?" Yes I do, a few and I rent even better ones when I need them. But what is better? It is the camera you use for the purpose for which you are shooting? The very capable and creative photographer, Helmut Newton, said (to paraphrase)... "It is the same camera that any amateur would use, it is all up here" (pointing to his head while he said that).

So is it Photoshop or is it a really good camera? Makes no difference, it is the photographer that makes the difference.

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Bodybuilding and Family!

We often think of professional bodybuilders as just those big guys on stage. But in actuality they are just people too with hopes, aspirations, businesses, jobs and families. And that is the story of Moe Moussawi, one of the top professional bodybuilders in the world. I had the chance to shoot with Moe and his family for New Zealand Fitness Magazine. I usually don’t do much in the way of families or kids but this was great fun!



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What Do I Do?

I am very often asked by clients what can I do to make my photos different, better, more interesting for them. As you can see I do a lot of work in the bodybuilding and fitness business and shooting bicep curls and such can get routine looking across the dozen or so magazines on the shelves. Sometimes it takes a little courage to go outside the box of megapixels and sensors and studio lighting but I pride myself in always getting it done.

Here are two photos from a series I just shot at Anytime Fitness here in the Palm Springs area in California. I had a great new model, Brad Gwinn, and decided to go backwards in technology. Using a Contax G1 rangefinder camera designed in 1994 and Kodak Tri-X film I think I gave this workout a series a new "old" look that is much fun!



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