I haven't really done fitness photography before (other than shooting action sports which is different than fitness portraits).
This is my boy. He just turned 18 and is working on becoming a personal trainer, as a job while he is going to college. He has been training super hard for these shots. He has always been small, had lots of illnesses, from asthma, compromised immune system, food allergies connective tissue problems, and was actually paralyzed in one leg when he was 11, but got better through lots of hard work. He knee surgery at 14 on the other leg, and more hard stuff from then on. His body has been against him from day 1. But he is the most stubborn, brilliant, crazy, opinionated, strong and determined person I know. Knowing where he has come from, I look at this image and know how much work it has taken him to get here. But he doesn’t feel like this is the "accomplishment." He feels like this is the beginning of his future.
Good for him! He looks like he is well on his way. I really like where you're going with this image. The lighting is cool and his pose really shows off his physique... I'm just not a fan on the sepia-inspired toning you've got going on. For a fitness image I'd prefer to see his actual skin tone or pure B&W. I think if you changed that, it would be much stronger (no pun intended, lol).
Thanks so much for your comment. He had some serious eczema going on in spots (bright red - you can kind of tell on his stomach and his neck), so I sucked the color out and made it sepia to fix that (correct skin tone wouldn't work without hours of frequency separation). He really wanted the dark gritty look here. Pure b/w would be cool though. Thanks!
I like this one a lot better than the first one. Agree with comment on sepia tone, but lighting is amazing.