Had the pleasure of working with Benji Santana who works at Snap Fitness in Sedona and Cottonwood as a trainer. He’s looking to pick up a bit of modeling work and asked me to shoot a some images. Looks like the camera likes him…

benji santana body builder model photo

Benji is pretty well cut. Those abs look strong. That chain weighs about 30 pounds…

benji santana model photo

Benji fills out clothing pretty well too.

I used the Lumix GH4 for capture with the 35-100mm 2.8 lens. Shooting more toward the telephoto end of the lens compresses the scene  and features. For the body builder images I took a lower angle to give Benji a more powerful feel as in the photo he is looking down at the viewer of the image. For the clothing shot I wanted a more friendly feel so moved the camera up so we were looking at eye level with the viewer. Bodybuilder lighting was with Paul C Buff Ultra Zap with a shoot through umbrella placed high to camera right just out of the frame to accentuate the abs but still give some slightly soft shadow edge transitions. A 4×6 silver reflector was added camera left to add some fill to the shadows. An unmodified second light was placed camera left and slightly behind to open up the shadows and give some separation from the background and add some interest.

Here is a ZED card I designed for the shoot as self-assignment and as an add-on possible sale…

model Zed card photo

Model Zed card design.

Yours in Creative Photography,      Bob