About a week and a half ago I spent the afternoon with Kane Sumabat, a fitness trainer (and pretty hilarious Instagram personality), who was in California visitin from Canada where he grew up and lives.

Kane and I were put in touch with each other through a mutual Instagram friend, fitness bikini competitor Rae-Ann Camacho who I’ve been working on setting up a photoshoot with. She recommended me to Kane when he was looking for a photographer to shoot with in California for various images.
As it turned out, his supplement sponsor Controlled Labs Supplements was also interested in updated photos of Kane. So after some discussion and scheduling we were able to set up a day to shoot the various images that Kane was looking for for himself AND Controlled Labs. It was a very cool opportunity for me to work with Kane, and as you guys may have read in one of my recent blog posts I was also able to work with Kane on a personal project of mine as well (he was Shredder for my ongoing Ninja Turtles series, full blog coming soon).

My good friend, and usual assistant, TJ Lauters was on hand with me all day as first assistant. He also shot a number of Behind the Scenes photos which you’ll find toward the end of this blog post. TJ also assembled a BTS Video! Check it out

Kane is hilarious in person. His sarcastic humor that he has online is no different than how he is when you’re talking to him. And when it comes to fitness the things that he has the strength to do is just incredible.

Anyway, read on past the break and check out the various images from our shoot. These are the ones I liked and edited. Some of them are pretty straight forward, others may have various effects that I was playing around with on them.

We started the afternoon off with planks. These are definitely something that people think look easy until you realize just how heavy your body is to lift out like that

 

Kane is also able to do these one-handed.

Superman style reverse planks. We shot these from below. Kane preferred this angle as you can see more of the muscle required to hold this pose

After the reverse planks we moved on to V-sit using Kettle Bells.

These were incredible to watch because Kane can go from the first pose above, curl his body under himself and move into this pose

His next goal is to be able to get his legs completely vertical, which is no small feat of both strength and flexibility

We got a few pullup photos in, too.

In between sets Kane took small breaks of course, so we actually got several photos of him this way

 

Had to get some physique shots of Kane while we were there

Moving on to curls next.
Here’s your motivation for getting in shape… your chest, abs, and arms could one day look like this with enough discipline.

Dead lifts with some extra weight with the chains

Kane said he would do only three one-armed snatches…

The first two were fine, however the third and last one he was able to lock and balance and the exact same time.

He held the pose long enough to for everyone, not just me, to get plenty of shots both serious and goofing off like right here

HAD to get an Ironman shot since at this point in time we were all talking about comics/movies/etc

Then it was time to head outside in the heat for some tire-flipping photos

We shot these in the middle of the afternoon – which was tricky as hell. Trying to find a happy medium with enough light on Kane, enough fill light to eliminate the darkest shadows, Still be able to see enough of his muscle definition, and if possible have some blue sky, too

Not going to lie. I definitely wanted (and  just had) to jump in there for a photo with Kane! Hahaha!!
I wanted to originally use the small tire, but Kane said we’d switch and he’d take the little one – and then we both reallllly hammed it up for the photo.
Now I’m in decent shape, so the tire really isn’t as heavy as you first think – if you’re only lifting it once or twice. But I’m sure doing 9 or 10 flips in a row like Kane did for the photos was a hell of a workout

We did a number of sledge hammer shots, too. My favorite ended up being this one we took when we started

Next up was running. Kane will tell you immediately that he’s not a cardio guy. But we were still going to get some sprinting shots either way

Kane, resting for a bit before we do a couple last workouts. Be going strong for several hours already.

I wanted to get a couple black and white Men’s Health style shots of Kane before we finished. So I had brought a white backdrop with me just for that

This is the shot at the top of the post. I shoot a lot of portraits of people all in a similar style/fashion with lighting and editing. I wanted to make sure I got one like that of Kane, too

A tighter crop, with a bit more focus given to his eyes versus his build

The remaining photos are courtesy of TJ Lauters who was shooting some BTS shots throughout the afternoon

Trying out a few angles for Kane’s plank

Here’s a shot of what it looked like without lighting

My light setups weren’t too crazy, either. very simple two-light setups for most of the shots.

These were after the V-sit and plank shots on the kettle bells. Kane was checking everything out. For those shots I used my Canon 1D-X and was burst at a full 10fps while Kane flipped his body back and forth between poses. Incredible to watch

Me, double checking some settings for some pullup shots

We ended up moving from this location. It was too cluttered. The double-bar setup ended up being too distracting in general in my opinion

Some posed shots of Kane. You can see the finished versions of these if you scroll back up

Kane is actually around 5’10” or so, I’m only 6’2″ myself, but the angle here makes me look huge by comparison. haha

Later on we moved outside for the tire photos

These were some of the last BTS shots that I have from that afternoon

Overall it was a great afternoon. Afterwards we all went out for steak! Hahaha! I’m sure Kane was pretty hungry after a full afternoon of shooting. And myself and TJ were definitely both ready to eat since our lunch was very very small before starting that afternoon at noon.

I’m actually getting ready to head back up to the Bay Area and will be there through next week. I’ll be up shooting the Barnes wedding and also another part of my Ninja Turtles project – I’m adding my old friend Pasha to the series as Bebop! It’s going to be pretty awesome!