Photographing muscles

I recently shot two personal trainer friends of mine. I'm not going to try and sell you on the images or explain or contextualize. Be harsh what do I need to work on, what should I try next time around. For my ease, I would love if you could keep PP suggestions separate from shooting/lighting suggestions.

#1

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/oHtD​W8

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/pE4z​Cp

Images are not showing.

Should be fixed.

in the first one,maybe a bit of sweat or spray some water to make him look like sweat,muscles look more prominent when they have some shine to them,he's ripped and a bit of shine would have shown that more,i like both images

I like the first image. My only slight niggle, is the board dissecting his head. I love the idea, and dexterity behind the second shot, but feel the image is un-balanced. Maybe just needs them in a different pose?

PP and lighting both look good to my inexperienced eye.

On the first one the things that bother me are the falloff and how the light his hitting his face. So you have highlights and shadows on the top half of his body, but nothing below and the back of the barbell is pure black. Usually you would use a striplight along the edges to get full head to foot coverage. On the face you have half at normal exposure and half is in highlight. I would turn his head toward the camera so you are getting light on the edge, not half the face. On the bottom one you may want to fill from the right since the front of his body is fully in shadow. Also the background is a bit dark.

As an alternative you might want to try to light from both edges and fill from the front. So a three light setup. This is used a lot these days and is a popular look for athletic ads and stuff.

As far as PP goes, it depends on what look you want to get. Natural or something more dramatic. For muscle shots you usually want a lot of contrast to make the rips pop. Make sure if you crank up the contrast that you offset with a decrease in saturation or the skin tones will look off. Or even go for a desaturated skin tone look. You might check out Joel Grimes as he shoots a lot of athletes and has a signature look in both lighting and post processing. It might give you some ideas.

My take on the 2nd:

- better barefooted, get rid of the shoes (his and hers)
- he's a bit too close to the image frame
- straight legs if he can manage that
- try different perspectives (left/right)

2nd one; balance comp by including a post on the left. I'm sure there is a round concrete or metal post in that space. Agree with losing the shoes and straightening the legs if he can

also lose the barbell clamps on the wall