Fitness Advertorial
I thought I'd do a quick post about a shoot last week for an advertorial publication here in Phoenix. If you aren't familiar with the term advertorial, it's basically an editorial article written in a magazine that the subject of the article pays for. It's content for the magazine and it's a good ad for the client. This particular shoot will be a cover shot and feature spread in the April issue.
The gym was Premier Fitness Systems in north Scottsdale, and it's one of those gyms that makes me wanna carry all of my equipment inside in one trip to show how I could fit in there, lol. The gym's owners were great, and the atmosphere of the gym, along with the colors, layout, and equipment, really set the mood for the shoot. I knew I wanted to give it an edgy look, so I planned and lit my shots accordingly.
I let some of my rim lights flare for effect, like in the above photo. I realize extreme flare like that is highly subjective and is either loved or hated, so while I threw some into the mix, I didn't build any shots around it. Personally I think it adds to the nature of the message, it alludes to someplace dynamic and edgy, where you'll be motivated to work towards your goal, but of course it's for the publication and client to make the final selections. We'll see if any flare shots make the cut.
The targeted demographic for this spread are Baby Boomers, so the models in the shots (all actual gym clients) were chosen very specifically before the day of the shoot. With many shoots like this, the full creative weight falls on the photographer, but PFS was an exception. The owners of the gym knew exactly what they wanted to convey, it was just up to me to visually relay that message. I felt punchy colors, flared lights, and high-contrast shots would convey the story best, and I drew those out even more in the post work.
All in all, I believe the full shoot from set-up to breakdown took just about an hour, and delivered a handful of variation on 5 or 6 different scenes. The owners and models were a pleasure to work with, and the only real challenges were lighting and shooting in a room full of mirrors without gear bags, lights, stands, cords, or photographer being in every shot. Oh, there was also an unfortunate mishap involving a pocketwizard that broke at the hotshoe, but I was able to roll with it, and will be replacing the fallen Plus II with the newly announced Pocketwizard X, so win.
Continue inside...
The gym was Premier Fitness Systems in north Scottsdale, and it's one of those gyms that makes me wanna carry all of my equipment inside in one trip to show how I could fit in there, lol. The gym's owners were great, and the atmosphere of the gym, along with the colors, layout, and equipment, really set the mood for the shoot. I knew I wanted to give it an edgy look, so I planned and lit my shots accordingly.
I let some of my rim lights flare for effect, like in the above photo. I realize extreme flare like that is highly subjective and is either loved or hated, so while I threw some into the mix, I didn't build any shots around it. Personally I think it adds to the nature of the message, it alludes to someplace dynamic and edgy, where you'll be motivated to work towards your goal, but of course it's for the publication and client to make the final selections. We'll see if any flare shots make the cut.
The targeted demographic for this spread are Baby Boomers, so the models in the shots (all actual gym clients) were chosen very specifically before the day of the shoot. With many shoots like this, the full creative weight falls on the photographer, but PFS was an exception. The owners of the gym knew exactly what they wanted to convey, it was just up to me to visually relay that message. I felt punchy colors, flared lights, and high-contrast shots would convey the story best, and I drew those out even more in the post work.
All in all, I believe the full shoot from set-up to breakdown took just about an hour, and delivered a handful of variation on 5 or 6 different scenes. The owners and models were a pleasure to work with, and the only real challenges were lighting and shooting in a room full of mirrors without gear bags, lights, stands, cords, or photographer being in every shot. Oh, there was also an unfortunate mishap involving a pocketwizard that broke at the hotshoe, but I was able to roll with it, and will be replacing the fallen Plus II with the newly announced Pocketwizard X, so win.
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