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Putting the 'Active' in Activewear

Blake Cortes segues a video career (and a love of movies) into authentic lifestyle photos with his Tamron SP 24-70mm VC and SP 45mm VC lenses.

 

By Jenn Gidman
Images by Blake Cortes

Two years ago, Blake Cortes was immersed in the music video world, drawn in partly by his longtime love for movies. "When I was about 10, I would go with my father to the movies every Wednesday for a good four years straight," he says. "We'd see all types of movies: He'd pick a film, then I'd pick one the next week. And when I started shooting music videos, I carried that sensibility over with me to tell stories of my own through video."

But some health issues sidelined his video work, which is when Blake discovered photography—and an entirely new way to create visual narratives. "Still photography has done more for me over the past two years than video did in the past seven years," he says. "I found if I could capture a story in each photo, I would feel like I was making a mini-movie. At the beginning, I had no idea I was actually doing that—until I started getting emails from strangers telling me they loved what I was doing and how I inspired them. It kind of blew my mind."

A friend noticed Blake's lifestyle photos in his portfolio and encouraged the Florida photographer (originally from Brooklyn) to go that route. "I enjoyed doing that more than the high fashion work I'd been doing originally, because it's more free-flowing and fun," he says. "Once I switched over, I took a huge jump forward in terms of my work."

That "real" vibe is why Blake tries to make his activewear and lifestyle photos as natural-looking as possible. "I want people to look at my models and think, 'Hey, that could be me,'" he says. "I want to empower and inspire people. That's why I go for models who look like real people. A person could look at one of my photos and say, 'I can do that.'"

In Blake's Tamron lens arsenal: an older 17-50mm lens, plus the SP 24-70mm VC and the new SP 45mm VC. "I mostly use the 24-70 and the 45 now, and I absolutely love the 45," he says. "Once I put the 45 on my camera, it stayed on my camera. I was blown away with everything about that lens. It gave my work a different look, a more cinematic feel, and that was exactly what I needed."

Although Blake tends to head out in the mornings—"it's a cleaner light from the sun"—some of his best photos have evolved from evening sessions. "For this one particular shoot near the water, I found the perfect location, where I was able to get a clean sky with that warm, glowing light on my model," he says. "I had her jumping in a few different locations just to see where she'd be lit the best. There were some clouds covering the sun a little bit, so she wasn't blown out, and everything wasn't too dark. After about 20 jumps, we were done."

Blake will often fill the frame with his models and place them either against a clean, non-distracting background or take advantage of the 24-70's ability to create a complementary bokeh, allowing just enough context to show the model's environment. And he puts them to work for the most authentic images. "You may see drops of sweat on their activewear or notice my model looks like she's been working out, and that's because she often has," he explains. "I used to just have my models stand and pose, and the images didn't come out as well—they didn't look real."

That changed when he was photographing a friend one day on a football field with a track circling it. "Before we started shooting, she ran two laps, then came back and said, 'I'm ready to go.' Those photos came out perfect. That's when I realized my models had to do real workouts before I began taking their pictures."

Sometimes his best photos emerge in the middle of the action. "I had one of my models flipping a tire over and over—she did it for a good 10 minutes," he says. "A friend of mine had a reflector on her the whole time so the light on her wasn't too orange. She must've started getting tired, though, because she got to a point where she couldn't flip it all the way. She kind of just stood there for a minute, trying to catch her breath between flips. That's when I got this shot."

Knowing the venues near where he regularly shoots helps Blake plan out future photos in his mind's-eye. "For this image of a model running down the bleachers, I knew this place well, so I could figure out exactly how those lines would look in the image," he says. "The sun was out and it was very hot, but it was early in the morning, so I was getting gorgeous colors in the sky. From where I was standing, the sun was shining on her and she wasn't getting blown out. I could still get the sky in the background and show her going to work, which was running up and down those stairs a few times. Good thing she's a friend of mine—she didn't seem to mind helping me out."

Sometimes what he's shooting will bring Blake into unexpected places—including being submerged in the sea. "I'd always wanted to get a shot of a model on the water, but I'd never really been able to capture one the way I wanted to," he says. "One day I rented a kayak from a guy I knew, got it in my car, and drove up to the coast (I'm in Tampa, near the Gulf). I ended up getting into the water almost up to my neck, trying to hold the kayak still while I was shooting. Luckily, the water was really calm, and the colors came out beautiful across the board."

Little did he know that that wouldn't be his last time in (or on) the water. "I was on assignment for the very first time on a sailboat recently," he says. "We spent about five hours on the water, and trying to keep my sea legs was challenging. But the 24-70's Vibration Compensation (VC) feature was so useful in this case. And because my three models all actually knew each other, they had instant chemistry, and it shows in my pictures. We had a great time."

To see more of Blake Cortes' work, go to www.blakecortes.com.