This week we had a guest from the states in our humble home studio. We met up with Greg for a shoot after he flew in from the US for some shoots in Europe.

It was a pleasure shooting with Greg and for the first time we got to shoot athletic / fitness shots in our studio. I have only been on location shoots where muscle was a factor, so this was exciting and new for both Judith and me!

The mood board we had collected for inspiration gave us lots of ideas of what we wanted to try out and take inspiration from, so we sped through telling each others life stories and through different light setups, both with our speedlights, the soft boxes and at times a single bounced flash.

Greg has been super flexible, esay to direct, moving lights directly to shots he wanted and patiently enduring the body painting processes. He couldn’t have made it easier and was super well prepared!

We started out with some gelled flash, to bounced off the ceiling and further on to the softboxes. When you gel a flash, it’s just a fancy word for putting some coloured plastic sheet over it.

It’s incredibly interesting and different to shoot athlete/fitness shots, being more aware of anatomy and which muscles show best under which circumstances, to portrait the body in the best possible light and also to have the light from multiple sources hit it as desired. Body building and fitness shoots are quite unique in that way and possibly only are very close to nude art, where the body plays a similar role.

We also had some more typical athlete shots with flour (yes, supposed to be chalk) and later applied some acrylic paint, first only on the chest and then also across the face to draw a connection to a native american-ish warrior look.

Thanks to Greg for a super cool shoot and check him out on Instagram!