Photos of bodybuilders in a gym setting

[adamsfour]

My friend is a personal trainer and wants me to photograph her for a new website. She wants gym shots, I will have no control over the ligting in the gym (and not yet sure what kind of lighting it is). Any ideas on how to shoot this?
I have the following equipment
Nikon D80
Nikkor 18-55, 50mm, 70-300 lens
SB-600 flash
Diffuser cap & white card
Tripod
Apollo softbox
Grey card

Also, any advice on poses or books to read?
Thanks,

 

[JIP]

Start here

http://strobist.blogspot.com/

 

[newrmdmike]

www.daveblackphotography.com also has some good stuff . . . not as much as strobist. but he does have a tutorial type article from a body builder he photographed.

 

[three_eyed_otter]

Your biggest problem in the gym will probably be the mirrors--those darn things are all over the place. Depending on what type of photos your friend wants (aerobic, anaerobic) it may be best to see if she can use one of the studios in the gym. They usually only have front and back mirrors which which would allow you to manipulate the backdrop some, but will also make it very difficult if she want's weight machines in the photos. Go to the bookstore and look at work out (i.e., training) books. You will notice that a lot of the photos are a bit drab and lack the implied motion.

This is just a suggestion and take it as you wish but your friend may want to use photos of existing clients performing the services she is trying to sell instead of a bunch of photos of her doing the activities. From a marketing perspective she could better target the clients she wants to service if they saw photos of somebody they could relate to doing the activity (i.e., they expect your friend to be able to do the activity but if they see a peer doing it there will be a much stronger assoc.).

I have never done a gym photoshoot but I do have a degree in exercise science and have seen of enough boring, poorly lit, and poorly composed training photos to last a lifetime.

have a good one
3Eo

 

[Garbz]

Quick and dirty answer either tripod and set the camera to fluorescent whitebalance (since I can almost guarantee fluorescent lighting) and get the body builder to hold still. Or fire the SB-600 at the roof.

The way I would start would probably be to find something white in the gym, and use the Nikon D80 in commander mode to fire the SB-600 remotely. The flash bouncing the light off your white object and either have the lights turned off if they are fluorescent or have a green filter on the flash to correct the colour difference. But there are many different ways to do this and working through the Lighting 101 series on Strobist (linked above) will make everything clear.