Terrible Light and Bad Perceptions
As many of you are aware, one of my personal projects for the last few years has been to try and get stronger. I started doing this after being inspired by some of my 40+ year old clients who I noticed were aging far slower than their peers.
After talking with these people I began to notice a few trends all of them had in common. One of the things I kept hearing was that all of them were resistance training. I put together a small summary of what I’ve learned in my exercises everyone should practice post if you want an easy to follow blueprint you can implement yourself.
Lately though I had been going though my routine and started really questioning myself. I felt like I was working hard but every time I looked in the mirror I just looked blah. Don’t get me wrong I look fine, but I wasn’t saying to myself:
“Wow Jason! Good job! You put in a lot of hard work! Atta Boy.”
Bad light mirror selfie documenting fat loss from June 2017
Bad light mirror selfie from September 2018
Bad Light Makes You Look Bad
A huge reason for this, I theorized, is that the lighting in my house is terrible especially where my mirrors are located. After 3 years of weight training I felt disappointed with my progress because I wasn’t getting good visual feedback when I looked in the mirror. Maybe I’m just not seeing my progress because I have too much fat covering my muscles? I wasn’t sure.
In recognition of this, I decided I was going to get my body under some good directional light for a few progress photos. By doing this I knew I would most accurately see what I ACTUALLY look like rather than rely on what I was feeling and seeing in the mirror. If I was smart I’d install good lighting around my mirrors, but I’m not, so here we are.
The truth is, it had been so long since I had done progress photos under good light that I really didn’t have any idea what my own body looked like at present. My idea of what I looked like was frozen in my head from my last body progress photos almost a year and a half ago.
Progress photos from March 2019
Prison Gym
Since I last took progress photos of my body I have also invested in my own home workout area. I mainly did this due to the whole COVID thing making gyms quite the cumbersome experience, but now that I have it I’m left wondering why I didn’t do this sooner! I call my humble little corner the “prison gym” for it’s brutal simplicity.
With my” prison gym” being right over there, I knew it would be a really good idea to pump up my muscles before I captured the photos. By doing this I knew I’d get the most accurate snap shot for where I’m at and what I need to do to improve moving forward.
For those that don’t know, Huge Jackman (or whoever makes you weak in the knees) doesn’t actually look like they do in your favorite shirtless scene. What they commonly do for those shots is they have the actor or model lift weights in the next room over so they can send all the blood to their muscles. This technique inflates the muscles as your body reacts to the work. This is what gives the body that beautiful strong look. Everyone in every fitness blog or shirtless movie poster you’ve ever looked at is doing this.
Lighting for Fitness Photos
So I set up a gridded beauty dish and a black v flat for some high contrast shots that I knew would show all the contours of my body. This is a great light set up if you want the final photos to be black and white, which I did in this case.
I then went out and did a nice long prison workout. It’s funny, I was anti gym guy all my life much preferring other forms of exercise like hiking, diving and mountain bike riding. After having explored resistance training I can honestly say I’ve never enjoyed exercise as much as I do when I’m doing this. It’s not uncommon for me to wander out to my weights and lift for 1 1/2 to 2 hrs at a time. I love it that much!
Later I staggered back into the house grinning from ear to ear to see my sleepy wife about to head off to bed. She kindly offered to snap a few shots before she went to bed to save me from the aggravation of trying to take in focus selfies off a tripod.
Changing the Way I See Myself
Now, I’m not going to claim I have the most gorgeous body ever or that I don’t have more work to do, but I certainly didn’t realize I looked like this! I’m especially proud of my chest development having had very under developed pectorals my entire life. Until I saw theses images, I literally had no idea that I currently have separation between my upper and lower pectoral groups for instance. Overall I’m now happy with my progress and super happy I took the time to capture these.
Most simply put, it took a camera and some good light for me to change the way I saw myself, which is THE SAME THING I tell all of my clients I will do for them!
So when you say you don’t know if you can step in front of the camera, and you’re worried about what you’re going to look like in the final photos. Trust me I get it… Again.
I Can Do Better!
I still need to capture a few more pictures as I feel we didn’t get good shots of my latissimus or tricep development before my wife called it quits for the evening. Once I get those and capture better images of my lower body and back I should have a good updated idea of what my body actually looks like so I can most precisely see what I need to work on moving forward.
For instance after seeing these photos and being overall happy with my progress, I notice that my bicep development could use some improvement (specifically the anterior side). This is a good thing to know because now I know what exercises I need to do more of to improve!
By identifying my own weaknesses and making them stronger, I’m always hopeful that I’ll be just a little better than I was yesterday, and proud of what I’ve accomplished over time.
The point is that I’m always preaching to all of you to change the way you see yourselves and feel good about yourself as you are, but honestly it had been way too long since I had taken my own advice. My perception of myself wasn’t accurate until I took the time to do this and put myself under some good light.
When’s the last time you saw yourself under good light?
If you’re like me and haven’t seen yourself under some good light in a while, feel free to reach out and I’d be happy to show you what you actually look like under some great lighting and direction. Simply put if you don’t know where you currently are, it’s damn near impossible to figure out what you should be focused on moving forward for where you want to be.
I know writing my own testimonial here would be meaningless, but these reactions certainly aren’t if you’re still have reservations about doing a photo shoot of your own.
Hope to talk to you soon so I can help you change the way you see yourself!
-Jason
