The image above was shot with a Elinchrom Rotalux 39″ Deep Octa with a Photoek Softlighter II for fill on a Gravity Backdrop.
The first time I worked with fitness model and personal trainer Matthew Cuff it was to help him develop his first comp card and I’m pretty sure he was about 21 at the time. Cuff, now in his late 20’s, is an Asics sponsored full time personal trainer, working all over the US, and hes looking to update his comp card.
I recently acquired a 16 sided deep parabolic type softbox from Cheetah Stands called a RiceBowl RB-120. Which as photographer I was excited to buy, because the samples I saw showed that it could produce extremely hard light and extremely soft light just by changing the baffles or zooming the head with their optional Chop Stick accessory. So far the results have been amazing!
We needed to capture some body pics and headshots for Matthew’s comp card. So For these white background portraits, I placed the Chopstick in the medium position so the light was hard, but not too hard, which I knew would be both flattering for the models face, while still showing off his fitness physique. Then I had Matthew pose in front of a 4.5×6′ softbox.
This was also my first time using my new Canon EOS 1DX Mark II camera. I have to say i was extremely impressed! I actually exposed for the sky in the photo below and then pulled up the shadows to reveal Matthew’s face, which was so under exposed in the original RAW file that the photo looked like a silhouette.
Matt wanted to add as many different sports looks to his comp card portfolio as possible.
As the setting sun neared the horizon we used the long and sharp shadows it created to create these action looks for the fitness model’s comp card. I was really impressed at how solid the camera felt and how every frame was tack sharp
