What happens when you take a real Phoenix commercial photography production and put it in front of thousands of photographers watching live?
That was the idea behind a recent project I produced for OHM Fitness, a fitness brand specializing in technology-driven training and wearable fitness products.
This wasn’t a styled shoot created solely for an educational demonstration. It was a real commercial photography production for a real client, with real creative requirements, real client feedback, real models, real contracts and real deliverables.
And we broadcast the entire process live through CreativeLive.
The goal was simple: show photographers what a professional commercial production actually looks like from beginning to end while creating imagery the client could actually use.
The Concept: A Real Commercial Shoot, Not a Classroom Exercise
I’ve been teaching through CreativeLive throughout 2026, presenting photography education to an audience that can number in the hundreds or thousands of photographers watching live.
For one of my presentations, I wanted to do something different. Rather than simply talk about commercial photography production, I wanted to show it.
That meant finding a real client with a real product, developing a real creative concept, building an actual production around it and then allowing photographers to watch the entire process unfold.
OHM Fitness was the perfect partner. But there was an important distinction. OHM wasn’t participating simply to help me teach a class.
They needed to walk away with strong commercial photography that they could use for their own marketing and advertising.
That meant the creative had to work on two levels:
- It needed to demonstrate professional commercial photography techniques to the CreativeLive audience.
- It needed to produce finished images that had value for OHM Fitness.
The client was involved throughout the process, which made the production even more valuable from an educational perspective. And, ultimately, that’s what makes a commercial photography production different from a photography demonstration.
The pictures have to work for somebody other than the photographer.
Starting With the Creative
The first step wasn’t picking up a camera.
It was figuring out what we actually needed to create.
OHM Fitness had a clear need for strong imagery of its signature suits. The athletes and models wear specialized body suits as part of the OHM Fitness experience, so we needed imagery that showed the suits clearly and attractively.
That led to one creative direction:
Clean, high-key product imagery
We created a bright, high-key setup against white designed around the hero images. The goal was clarity.
The suit needed to be immediately recognizable. The model needed to look strong and athletic. The imagery needed to be clean enough to function as commercial advertising and website content.
But I also wanted to create something that went beyond simply photographing the product. OHM Fitness is about movement, energy and physical performance. So I developed a second creative direction around motion.
Creating Movement With Light
For the second setup, I wanted the photographs themselves to communicate movement and energy.
Instead of relying on post-production to create the effect, I wanted to build it in camera.
The concept was to combine traditional strobe photography with RGB continuous lighting.
The continuous RGB lights created the colorful movement and trails, while the strobe essentially froze the subject.
The result was a photograph that could contain both: movement and stillness.
You get these colorful traces of movement throughout the frame, but the subject ultimately resolves into a sharp, focused photograph.
That felt much more connected to what OHM Fitness represents than simply photographing somebody standing still in a suit.
It also gave us an opportunity to demonstrate a lighting technique that photographers could take away and apply to their own work.
The Production Started Long Before Shoot Day
One of the things I wanted the CreativeLive audience to understand was that the actual photography is only one part of a commercial production. A lot of the work happens before anyone ever walks onto the set. For this project, that included working directly with OHM Fitness to establish what they needed from the shoot, developing the creative concepts, building the mood board and working through the shot list.
We had to determine:
- What imagery did OHM actually need?
- Which shots were hero images?
- What did the product need to communicate?
- How would the images be used?
- What did we need to accomplish during our limited time on set?
- Which creative ideas would give the client something distinctive?
- What did we need from our models?
- What crew did we need?
- What equipment and lighting setups would be required?
We also handled model casting and the associated terms and contracts, as well as bringing in hair and makeup.
I had production assistance on set, along with a director of photography, while the client had representatives there throughout the shoot.
All of those decisions are part of commercial photography. The camera is just one piece of the puzzle.
Shooting at The Hive Studios in Phoenix
We produced the shoot at The Hive Studios in Phoenix, Arizona, which gave us the flexibility to build two very different lighting environments during the same production.
The entire production took approximately three and a half hours.
We divided the shoot into two primary setups.
Setup One: High-Key Hero Images
We started with the bright, clean setup.
This was designed around the hero imagery for the OHM suits and wearable.
The white background gave us a clean commercial aesthetic and allowed the product to remain the focus.
The goal was to create images that could eventually live on a website, in social media and potentially in other marketing applications.
Setup Two: Low-Key Motion
From there, we transitioned into a darker, low-key environment.
This is where we introduced the RGB continuous lighting and the motion technique.
The darker environment allowed the colored light to become a much more significant visual element while the strobe gave us the sharp, frozen subject.
Changing the lighting environment completely changed the feeling of the images without requiring us to change the entire production.
Then the Client Asked for Something New
This was one of my favorite parts of the production because it demonstrated something that photographers don’t always see in educational demonstrations.
While we were on set, OHM Fitness asked about adding another product into the shoot.
They had been prototyping a wearable watch and wanted to see if we could incorporate it into the production.
So we did.
This is what happens on a real commercial set.
The creative isn’t necessarily locked in a vault before you arrive. A client can see something happening and say:
“What if we tried this?”
The job isn’t to get defensive because it wasn’t on the original shot list.
The job is to determine whether the request makes sense, whether it can be executed within the production and, if it can, figure out how to make it work.
In this case, we added the wearable into the shoot.
That became part of the CreativeLive broadcast as well, giving the audience an opportunity to see how that kind of client request can be handled in real time.
Working With the Client on Set
OHM Fitness had two representatives on set, Andy Cooper and Hannah Van. Their involvement was important. They weren’t simply there to watch. They were actively involved in the creative process, helping with art direction and creative direction and providing feedback as we worked through the images.
If they saw something they wanted adjusted, they could communicate that to me immediately. We could make the change and continue shooting.
Again, this is an important part of professional commercial photography.
A commercial photographer isn’t simply hired to show up with a camera and execute whatever they personally want to create.
You’re working with a client.
You have to understand their brand, their objectives and their expectations while still bringing your own creative expertise to the production.
The strongest commercial work happens when those things meet.
Broadcasting the Entire Production Live
While all of this was happening, we were also broadcasting the production live through CreativeLive.
That meant photographers watching could see the entire process unfold.
They could ask questions about things like:
- Why we chose a particular lighting setup
- How we developed the creative concept
- Why we chose certain lenses and lighting
- How the motion effect was created
- How we worked with the models
- How we worked with the client
- How a commercial shot list is developed
- What happens when the client asks for something new
- How a production is staffed
- What happens during pre-production
- How creative decisions are made on set
Instead of showing photographers a finished photograph and explaining how I made it, they got to see the decisions that led to the photograph. That’s a very different kind of education.
The Real Value of Commercial Photography Is the Production Beyond the Image
One of the biggest misconceptions about commercial photography is that the value is in the camera.
It isn’t.
The camera is important, obviously. But a successful commercial photography project involves far more than taking pictures.
It involves:
Creative development. Understanding what the client needs and finding a visual solution.
Pre-production. Mood boards, shot lists, casting, contracts, scheduling, crew, hair and makeup, equipment and logistics.
Production. Lighting, direction, styling, set management, client communication and problem solving.
Post-production. Selecting the strongest frames, retouching, color, compositing and preparing final deliverables.
And perhaps most importantly: Communication. Because commercial photography is ultimately a collaboration.
What We Created for OHM Fitness
At the end of the production, OHM Fitness had a collection of finished creative built around two distinct visual approaches.
The first was the clean, high-key imagery designed to clearly showcase the suits and wearable technology.
The second was the more expressive low-key imagery using RGB continuous lighting, movement and strobe to create a sense of energy.
We also incorporated the wearable prototype into the production at the client’s request.
The resulting images are intended primarily for OHM Fitness’s website and social media, with additional advertising and marketing applications possible as the brand develops its campaign.
And importantly, the client walked away with actual commercial photography.
The CreativeLive audience got to see the production.
OHM Fitness got new marketing imagery.
And I got to make photographs that I was genuinely proud of.
That’s a pretty good definition of a successful commercial production.
Why I Wanted to Show the Entire Process
There is a lot of photography education focused on the photograph itself.
How to light. How to pose. What camera to use. What lens to buy. What settings to choose. Those things matter.
But if you want to work as a commercial photographer, there’s another skill set you need to develop.
You need to understand how to turn a client’s business objective into a visual concept.
You need to know how to build a production around that concept.
You need to know how to communicate with a client.
You need to know how to direct people.
You need to know how to solve problems when something changes.
And you need to deliver photographs that actually help the business.
That’s what I wanted this CreativeLive production to demonstrate.
Not a perfectly controlled photography demonstration. A real shoot. With a real client. Real products. Real models. Real creative decisions. Real client feedback.
And real commercial photography at the end of it.
Phoenix Commercial Photography for Fitness, Sports and Brands
I’ve spent more than 20 years working in photography and media, including more than 800 published magazine covers, with a significant portion of my work in the fitness, health and wellness space.
That experience has shaped the way I approach commercial photography today.
Fitness and sports photography isn’t simply about photographing somebody who looks athletic.
It’s about understanding movement, anatomy, energy, performance and the visual language of the brand.
Sometimes that means a clean product photograph.
Sometimes it means a powerful athlete portrait.
Sometimes it means building an elaborate lighting setup specifically to make movement visible in a still photograph.
And sometimes it means figuring out how to do all of that while a client is standing next to you asking, “Can we also get this?”
That’s commercial photography.
And that’s exactly why I wanted to show the process.
Looking Beyond the Finished Photograph
The final photograph is what people see.
The production is everything they don’t.
For this OHM Fitness project, we wanted to make that invisible part visible.
From the first client conversations through creative development, casting, contracts, mood boards, shot lists, crew, hair and makeup, lighting, client direction, shooting and post-production, every decision contributed to the final images.
And because we were broadcasting it live through CreativeLive, photographers weren’t just looking at the finished work.
They were able to see how the work actually got made.
That’s the part of commercial photography I think is most worth teaching.
The photograph is the finished product. The production is the craft.
Looking for a Phoenix Commercial Photographer?
If you’re planning a commercial photography project and need more than someone to simply show up with a camera, I’d love to talk.
I work with brands, companies, agencies and creative teams to develop and produce commercial photography, fitness and sports photography, corporate portraits, and brand imagery from concept through final delivery.
Whether you already have a fully developed creative direction or you’re still figuring out what the shoot needs to accomplish, I can help build the production around the objective.
See more of my commercial photography work
If you have a project coming up in Phoenix or beyond, let’s talk about what you’re trying to create.
