5 things to consider when having your photos taken in a public gym

Having your photos taken in a public gym can be tricky. If renting out a space is a little out of budget or not an option where you are located here are 5 things to consider.

1. The gym might be a ‘public’ place but it is still a private facility. Meaning having people in frame of your photos without their consent is a real thing, so be cautious. What’s the work-around? A majority of your shots will have to be tight or filling the frame nearly to its entirety. Photoshop is an option but not always full-proof. 

2. Time = Money. Waiting for a specific machine or apparatus can reduce your photoshoot time. How to combat this circumstance? When hiring your Fitness Photographer it might be best to opt for a deal that gives you ample time to get in the shots you want barring waiting on other gym members. Or if the coverage for extra time is costly, create a mood board to select a few of the ideas that can be captured in one spot in the gym. Extra tip: Go during non peak hours, like before sunrise or graveyard hours.

3. Your photographer may need a gym pass. What’s the trick here? In a perfect world, you’ve met your photographer at your gym so no need to worry about admittance. Or review your gym pass policy, you might have a buddy pass system that will allow them on certain days or times. Try not to get a trial pass, because usually that comes with a salesman trying to pitch a membership and it’ll take time away from your photoshoot. Plus it’ll make it awkward. 

4. In a public setting it is unrealistic to have your photographer bring all their gear such as light stands, light modifiers, lights, so on and so forth. Depending on the gym space bringing extra clutter will make it difficult to setup and navigate through the crowd. What’s the realistic approach? You’ll have to accept the available light from the gym during your Fitness Photo Shoot. Depending on your Fitness Photographer, they might bring a minimalist approach to light sources. Pro tip: During your workouts start to make note of the areas of the gym that make you look pumped. Recommend these to your Fitness Photographer so that it’ll take less time hunting for a spot.

5. All eyes are on you. If you are shy or awkward in front of the camera the draw to attention is going to be magnified when the other gym members see a fitness photographer following you around taking snaps. Practical approach? Try to find a corner of the gym to keep your exposure to a minimum. 

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It makes business cents

Affordable fitness coach headshots, will cost you more in the long run.

Bargain shoppers. There I said it! We are all guilty of looking to get more bang for our buck and make our dollar stretch further. This approach often works in a practical sense for our basic necessities or the latest fad.

I often tell people the Dollar Tree has THEE best knock off Pop Tarts! If I gave you a blindfold test, I’m certain you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. What’s best is the price is a fraction of what you would spend at your local grocery store.

Now, there are things that just don’t quite hold up to the par. For example the current rage of Stanley cups for your liquid consumption. I said liquid because I know some of you are pallin’ around with Jack, Jose and the Captain, not water. No judgement though! The Stanley cups can be quite expensive, especially when you’re rocking different ones for all your outfits. So naturally other companies have jumped on the bandwagon and made more affordable look-alikes. On one hand the average person can get 2 or 3 of these for the price of one Stanley.

They both hold fluid and might be leak proof, but will one of them stand the test of time and hold the thermal temperature longer?

Better yet let’s put this more in your realm for a sec. Imagine creating a meal plan for your client and everything is dialed in to meet their nutrient and caloric goals. Then your client decides for the sake of time and the 2 for $6 deal they get a McDonalds Sausage Egg McMuffin for their breakfast. I know some of you are saying, well if it fits their macros, let em. However, imagine this sort of approach for 2 or even 3 more meals for their day. Ahhh, now it’s starting to make you cringe. For the short term this is helping get in some calories but for the long run, this isn’t sustainable.

The same thought process should be applied to your business/brand. Cutting corners by using your cellphone will only get you so far to obtain your ideal client base. In the same vein, shopping for a live at home College student to take your pictures with an entry level camera will only work for a few clicks.

Nutritionist headshots. The under exposure looks far worse because there is no separation between the subject and the background. It’s even harder to make the subject out because she is matching the background.

Now time for the real life practical application. Pictured above is a Rebecca who is a nutritionist coach. She recently posted online that she can help people achieve their weight loss goals using practical approaches. I have no doubt that she knows a thing or two on how to work with clients with weight loss goals. However by her fitness headshots, it says more about her business approach.

In her fitness coach headshot, she went through great lengths to get her hair done, nails touched up and even put on a full face of makeup. What she didn’t take the time to do was find an experienced photographer. The photo looks dark, which again I will preach until my last day, shadows and contrast is a good thing. However, everything has a time and a place and an intensity. What makes this photo so dark is that she is fading into the black background. This could possibly be a better photo with some editing done to bring her out.

I don’t know her but the fact that her fitness coach headshot isn’t being utilized as on her business page speaks volumes. She isn’t even willing to associate her brand with this photo. Let’s take a look, shall we.

Notice the profile picture for her business account and her personal page. The professional picture is used for her wedding but her business profile picture has an illustration.

You’ll spend more money by trying to save money up front.

Here we can see her Instagram business page has an illustration instead of having her fitness headshot. For a time, it was not uncommon to see a logo as a person’s brand. However in today’s culture, everyone is trying establish a brand that resonates with people on a personal level by using their face/body. Now let’s look at the stark contrast between her personal page and her business page.

On her personal Instagram page her profile picture is of her on her wedding day. I want to dissect that for a bit. In most weddings there is at least one thing professional at a wedding if not all vendors are professional. She took the time to look for a wedding photographer and most likely spent at least 4 digits worth of dollars for her wedding day. She found value in her wedding day and matched that with the photographer. Now look at this on a subconscious level. Her first line in her bio on her personal page is “Nutrition Coach PN1-NC”. Her husband took the second line, and he is in the picture! Why? She wants people to see her body for her brand. Both pages direct to one another. Meaning the professional wedding photo is her sudo business profile picture.

Now if she would have invested the same amount of effort and money into her fitness headshots, she would be rockin’ that photo on all her business related socials. For now she spent money on an unexperienced photographer and got subpar photos that she is barely using. Paid for an app or a digital artist to design her a logo, which she probably wouldn’t have done if her photos came out better. Then in time she’ll probably do one of two things. One, which is the wisest route, she’ll look and be very particular on her next photographer and spend even more money on another photo session. Or, she’ll spend money on Amazon items to have a makeshift in home studio and take photos in her living room. Only to find that isn’t cutting it and eventually hires an experienced photographer. You can see how this keeps adding up.

Remember shadows in photos convey dimension/shape and mood. Here is an example of a professionally shot and edited photo with a minimal setup in Yakima, Washington.

Pilates instructor headshot

Fitness lifestyle photos with more mood!

Let’s face it. There are two types of fitness professionals. Those who take their vision and elevate it in every aspect. Then there are those who will only invest in their ‘walking billboard’ approach.

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Understanding your goals for your pictures should be just as precise as your gym goals

Are your photo goals just as dialed in as your gym goals?

The picture here was shot with 3 artificial lights (flashes) and natural light from the window in front of the subject.

Before you go to the gym, you’ve already planned out your workouts. If you’re like me, you’ve probably designated each day of the week for certain body parts. None the less going in with an idea of what you want is the way to set yourself up for success. I want to help you understand what is exactly you should be identifying before searching for a fitness photographer.

To set the record straight for this blog I’m not pointing out right or wrong. Instead I am showing what is optimal compared to run-of-the-mill photography.

A majority of photographers that would like to think they shoot fitness style portraits are hitting the mark but not quite the bullseye. What do I mean by this? Well, 3 out of 10 photographers know how to shoot with flash, otherwise commonly known as flash photography. In the photog world the lingo would be “OCF”. Off Camera Flash. This may sound like it’s over your head but I’ll break it down in due time.

For now, let’s talk about the 7 photographers that don’t shoot flash photography (I’ll use this term since it’s easier to identify). For those 7 photographers, about 4 of them shoot using natural light, or what we call available light. This is the most common practice that everyone, including cellphone photographers, understand. The more light in your scene will usually equate to a more in focus photo.

Example of a photographer using natural light for this fitness coach headshot session. Photo by: Nick Gonzales of nixpix_

For fitness photos, you need to control the light or be at the mercy of the natural light.

Again, I want to state that I am not saying that there is a wrong way or right way, but merely there is a more effective solution. Or let’s put it plainly and say more bang for your buck for your fitness photos.

The photo above of the gym coach, she is doing a double bicep pose and showing her back. If you know what you’re looking for, you can see she has nice definition in her posterior deltoids, her upper back/traps, and lats. I put the emphasis on if, because she is a fitness coach. Therefore her target audience will be those who need guidance because they do not know. It’s like that saying, if you assume, you make an a$$ out of you and me. Now, compare the first top photo of this blog and this photo here of the gym coach. Which of these look like they are a certified gym coach? If you said the first one, congratulations you nailed it! However, they are both certified coaches. Now, to understand this our minds identified the most suitable image to our pre conceived figure of what a coach should look like. Is it that one is more fit than the other? To the eye it would appear that way, but I’m here to tell you that the second picture with the right angle and lighting it would have been tough to make your decision.

Flash photography is essential for your fitness photos!

The first photo was photographed using 3 artificial lights, aka flashes/strobes. The benefit to using flash is that as a photographer you can place the light to spill how you want it to with the right technique and modifiers. A lot of times we catch our pump or definition in the gym restroom or dressing room of a department store and it calls for an obligatory selfie. Now imagine having that kind of ‘good’ lighting for your fitness photos. Let me be clear that not all recessed lighting is not equal. Example to follow…..

Example of using available light from recessed lighting. Photo by Nick Gonzalez of nixpix_

To say the least, I think we can all agree this is not a flattering picture. There are several ways a photographer that could have approached this scene to make it more useable but that is for another day.

To quote Dr. Dre, “Back to the lecture at hand”. Taking it back to the very first image we discussed. As mentioned there were 3 flashes placed in the scene. I know, I know. More emphasizing. I promise this will make it worth it. These flashes weren’t attached to the camera. The camera had a remote to trigger the flashes to optimize the end result of the photograph. Hence they were off camera flash. See! I promised you I’d make it easier to grasp. I wanted to make that distinction very clear, because we talked about the 7 photographers that don’t know how to shoot using off camera flash, but we didn’t touch on the 3 photographers that are part of that 7. Well to put it plainly they haven’t gotten there yet with knowing how to use a remote to trigger the flash, so the strobe will sit on the camera and it’ll yield a decent photo but nothing like our image produced with off camera flash.

There you have it! Now you should be able to look for a fitness photographer going forward. Before you pay anything and link up for the shoot, make it clear what time of photos you want. Do you want available light or off camera flash!

When you’re ready to stand out in a crowded market, message me so we can start planning your photoshoot!