Mark Ruddick Mark Ruddick

Welcoming Wendy Joy Photograpy

This month Wendy Lang of Wendy Joy Photography joined my studio. I’ll let Wendy introduce herself.

My name is Wendy. I am a photographer based out of London Ontario. For as long as I can remember, I have always had a passion for creating. Specifically, I like to capture the personality of my clients.

I am a graduate of the Fanshawe College Photography program. Originally I am from Winnipeg Manitoba and I moved to London to pursue my dream of becoming a photographer.

Let me photograph you in my fresh, playful style!

Wendy Lang

Wendy and I have worked on a bunch of shoots together assisting each other since 2017. She will be a great addition to my studio and I’m looking forward to her moving in. Wendy specializes in fashion, portraits and fitness. Contact her to book your shoot.

Check out her website: https://wendyjoyphoto.com and her Instagram

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Mark Ruddick Mark Ruddick

New Photography Studio - 3 Month Retrospective

I've been in my new photography studio in London, Ontario for about 3 months now. A good amount of time to reflect on it. Initially it was not a move I was planning on making, but circumstances forced the move at the beginning of May. I've previously thanked the people who really helped me out building the walls, etc. of the studio. Special thanks again to Hollis Huggins and Stephen Yule for building the framework of the studio.

I've done a wide variety of photo shoots over the last 3 months. Fitness photo shoots, fight promotions, personal projects, product photography, business head shots, families, and even a cute puppy. As of August 1st I've photographed 35 times in the studio.

The studio is located at 30 Adelaide North St., London, ON N6B 3N5. The studio is physically inside Warriors Boxing and Fitness, an 8000 sq. ft. boxing gym. My studio is in a private 20' x 40' room at the front of the gym. In addition to the boxing, there is also a gym space, my guys at London Muay Thai and Bad Boys Wrestling.

The clear focus on the studio is fitness photography. I have olympic bars, plates, dumbbells, bench and other fitness equipment. For fitness and bodybuilding photography I also have use of the boxing gym and their equipment. However I can accommodate most any other type of photo shoot.

In addition to the studio and gym space my studio is located in an industrial building with lots of interesting backdrops to shoot on. The building itself is located on the Thames River providing, field, river and forest settings a couple minutes walk away.

There are still some items I would like to acquire for the studio and I'll do so over time, but I did pick up a fog machine on Amazon Prime Day. The fog machine works great and I've used it to good effect.

I am starting to get a good feel for the studio. How far back I should stand if the model is in a specific location or how the light plays off the walls is now becoming intuitive. The lounge and makeup area are coming along nicely with the fridge providing cold water. The nice thing about the new studio is it is mine. I have 24/7 access and I can leave my set ready to go.

I have some really cool shoots planned over the next couple of months. Stay tuned to my blog for more details.

- Mark Ruddick Photography is a full service London, Ontario photographer who specializes in fitness, bodybuilding and fight photography

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Mark Ruddick Mark Ruddick

NEW STUDIO!

I had gotten away from blogging my shoots recently as I have been busy building a new studio and moving the business. I've moved the studio inside of Warriors Boxing and Fitness where I'll have 24/7 access. The studio is a private area within the gym itself and I'll have run of the 8000 sq. ft. boxing facility as well.

The studio address is 30 Adelaide St. North, London, Ontario.

There's always room to improve, but my studio is up and operational. I had 6 clients in the first week. Here's a little behind the scenes video of the new studio and gym.

Some samples from the first week of shooting.

- Mark Ruddick Photography is a full service London, Ontario photographer who specializes in fitness, bodybuilding and fight photography

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Mark Ruddick Mark Ruddick

Teaser Image from Shoot with Jaclyn

I wanted to try a different lighting scheme and camera perspective than I normally use. Jaclyn was kind enough to help me out with it even though the space and setup were restrictive to her movements.

I mounted the camera on a boom and shot straight down. For lighting I used two very large softboxes, gelled with red, horizontally oriented, cross lighting the model at camera left head and camera foot. Many thanks to Sean for helping me with the setup, including the heavy lifting.

This is the first image I edited out of the session.

- Mark Ruddick Photography is a full service London, Ontario photographer who specializes in fitness, boxing and mma photography

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Mark Ruddick Mark Ruddick

Spartan Cosplay with Lori for a Cause

Fitness model and all around bad-ass, Lori, came down from Ottawa to shoot her new cosplay with me. Lori is touring with the costume and setting up shoots all over the province and donating the proceeds to a military charity. It is a great cause and I'll be donating some prints to the charity as well. If you are interested in a print, let me know.

Lori built her costume from scratch, no pre-made pieces on this one. It looks fantastic and photographs even better. Message her to setup your own shoot. She really had the physique to pull this off as a fitness competitor.

A close up of the helmet, 4 light setup including an underlight through a grid.

- Mark Ruddick Photography is a full service London, Ontario photographer who specializes in fitness, boxing and mma photography

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Mark Ruddick Mark Ruddick

Dance Shoot with Megan

I had some extra time in the studio last week and Megan came in to shoot a little dance with me. I had worked with Megan before as a ring girl from a boxing show. Megan was great and we did a little head shot work afterwards.

- Mark Ruddick Photography is a full service London, Ontario photographer who specializes in fitness, boxing and mma photography

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Mark Ruddick Mark Ruddick

Portraits with Daria

Daria came to London and I've been a fan of her work for a while, so I had to shoot with her. We did some portrait work and I'm really happy with the results. She's a very nice person and a great model.

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Mark Ruddick Mark Ruddick

Soccer Shoot

A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to shoot with a young soccer player who has made the Filipino U-16 National soccer team. She and her family were great to work with. We did a combination of action and posed shots for her media needs. I really enjoy working with athletes because of their natural posing ability and their attitude for getting the shot perfect.

We shot some of the images on white and some on black.

We got the safe posed pictures first and then pulled out the crash mat and got some action pictures. The reason I chose the strobe lights I did was the speed at which the flash. For the action images the flash duration was faster than 1/5000th of a second, freezing all of the motion. I used a small aperture to block out all of the light other than the strobes.

Before editing

Final image

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Mark Ruddick Mark Ruddick

Photo Shoot with Pro Boxer Winston Matthews

Professional Boxer Winston Matthews came down to the studio last night for some promo work before his next fight Saturday night against another friend Steve Rainford. Jus Win looked to be in great shape and was super relaxed. I'm looking forward to shooting the fights Saturday night in Mississauga on the United Promotions Card.

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Mark Ruddick Mark Ruddick

Fitness Art with Tank Joey - Maybe NSFW

I'm working on a series of implied nudes of various athletes as a figure study. I'm not sure where it will end up but I'm hoping to shoot it for a few years at least. I had the opportunity to work with local athlete, artist and gym owner Tank Joey who was just finishing up a North American modelling tour. I'm extremely grateful to have worked with such an experienced model for this project and one with as rabid a following as he has. The images turned out great. I really appreciate every athlete who comes out to help with this project.

Below are a few of the images we captured and we'll probably do some limited edition prints of select ones.

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Mark Ruddick Mark Ruddick

Fitness Weekend 2016

The OPA Natural Championships were on Saturday in London Ontario and we were certainly busy in studio with 6 hours of business on Saturday and a marathon 14 hours on Sunday. It was exhausting, but in a good way. I'll have the proofs back to the clients this week and so far they really like the images they have seen. I met so many wonderful people this weekend and I am grateful to them for their trust that I would handle their image with care.

Below are a few teaser images from some of the shoots this weekend. (some of them are pretty much straight out of the camera)

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Mark Ruddick Mark Ruddick

Fitness Weekend

The Ontario Physique Association is holding the Natural Provincial Championships in London, ON this weekend. It is a busy weekend for me as I am having 15 people come through the studio this weekend for shoots, including a number of competitors I have shot before. It is an exciting time and I'm looking forward to it. 

Below are a couple of pictures from last year's fitness weekend.

Mary Valid

Marcin

France Berube

Tank Fitness

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Mark Ruddick Mark Ruddick

Fitness Weekend

It was a busy weekend, I had 3 fitness shoots and shot a clothing line. Saturday night I was in studio with a bikini class competitor, Sunday was gym shoots with a physique competitor who took 2nd in his class and a grand masters bikini competitor who won her class of 12. We also shot a behind the scenes video of the one session that will come out in a month or so. That was a lot of fun, once I forgot the cameras were on me this time. Thanks to Lucky Horseshoe Films for making the trip. We ended the weekend with a trip to Toronto to shoot a bunch of male models in the gym, featuring gym wear. I'll be showing some of the pictures over the next week and a bit.

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