Best of a set

A couple of months ago I was asked to produce a set of photographs for a friends web-site www.bexercise.co.uk . Rebecca (Bec's - hence Bex) is a personal trainer and has had her web-site for a year or so but wanted to put some pictures on it - mindful of the potential issues with copying images from the internet I agreed to take some pictures of her and provide her with the images she needed.
As it is a personal training i.e. health based service she offers the images need to be bright/healthy/active. I chose a few venues, the grounds of Blenheim Palace, the fields near my home and my lounge and back garden - this will explain the differences in the location. For all of the images I wanted to have as simple a background as possible, to focus the eye on the subject - be it Rebecca or the equipment. I used fill in flash on a number of the outside shots as it was quite bright and from the selection below I downselected a set for her to pick from.

From which (and a few more edited down) came the following downselect:

 

From which the following were selected:











The portrait of Rebecca was not my favourite of the downselect due to the distant background (which I had attempted to keep out of focus where I could) adding some distraction. The indoor shot using the ball and weights has too many distractions, but I had thought she would want me to crop her head off! I also had to edit out the CD rack to the right as I thought she would only want her central section!

The "tummy" shot I had to colourize her skin to give it a healthy glow! The ball, weights and "stepper" worked quite for me, the elements all in clear focus and the foot "out of focus" showing work, I purposely shot it at an angle, which I also think works here.      

I wanted Rebecca's feet to clear the horizon in the "jump" shot to emphasize height and agility, whereas the heart monitor is basically a "product" shot, although shot off-centre and with a healthy glow to it I think.

The last two shots were about strength with the focus on the arms. Rebecca's biceps are that pronounced - no photoshopping needed there. 

These images were incorporated into her web-site which, whilst she is happy with it I would have maybe presented them slightly differently - but the pictures were from her brief and she was, and is, very happy with them.

After some comments by Catherine about including my preferences I thought I would update the blog with thoughts:

The only major difference was the portrait I had downselected these other three portraits. They all seemed to sum up "healthy" & "fit" and attractive. They all had no distractions at all in the background, the "stepper" shot suggested work to me and the "tools" shot was an alternative only.