Fitness with Michelle Ulibarri

Michelle Ulibarri is obviously a gorgeous gal with big eyes and a beautiful smile. But more than that, she is a professional model and a fitness and bikini competitor who is from Utah and is now living in Las Vegas. She came up to Utah for the holidays and we decided to get some fitness pictures done while she was here.

I had previously done some fitness pictures in my studio with a plain white background. While this makes the images very useful, the white background doesn't give them any context.

So I wanted to try something different ... I wanted to use a real gym, with weights and machines and all, to help give meaning to the pictures we would be taking.

One of my big concerns was that, today being the first Monday of the new year, the public gyms would be jam packed with new year's resolutionists. A fellow photographer friend, Steve Vogl, offered up a gym that we could use and so everything was set.

We started out fairly light (lighting Michelle up as well as the room in the background) and later on moved to more contrasty / controlled light images.  All in all, a very successful shoot.

Below are some of my favorite images from the session.