Fitness Photography Demonstrations and Tips

Photography Tips

Ever flip through a fitness magazine and wonder how they get those perfect poses of athletes running and working out? Well in this short video, photographer Yannick Wolff takes you behind the scenes as he shoots fitness model Sebastian Scheppler. Watch and take careful note of his techniques and lighting setups:

Wolff doesn’t talk about his shooting process in this video, but you can still get some valuable information out of it. A few things to notice are:

• Simple backgrounds – Wolff wants the main focus of his photos to be the model and his body, so he makes use of several solid-colored backgrounds so that it doesn’t distract the viewer from the main subject.
• Squirt bottle – Though the models are working out, they’re not doing enough exercise to sweat as much as they appear in the photos. A squirt bottle is a simple solution to making your model look like he/she has been training for hours.
• Low-key lighting – When shooting athletes, you often want to accentuate their physique. To do this, create a lighting set-up with various highlights and shadows across the subject rather than trying to light everything. High-key lighting can make your subject look dull and flat.

A simple background makes you focus more on the subject