This image that you see right here - the cover one - this is a picture I've taken last week with a triathlon athlete for her blog. Did I get money for that? No. Am I happy with that? Yes. Will I do it again in the future? You bet! You ask: "But Michèle, how can it be good when you don't get paid?" Well, here's my humble opinion about free photoshoots. The importance of personal projects As a professional photographer, I thought that I had to spend as much time - if not more - on my business than on my actual photography. After all, being a … [Read more...] about Free Photoshoots: Why Do I Do Them?
Michèle Grenier
Michele has developed a distinctive expertise as a sports portrait photographer. Specializing in commercial, event and advertising photography, she help companies and professionals in the industry to stand out and showcase their products and services with striking, high-quality images. She has created portraits of dozens of national and international athletes in more than twenty disciplines and realized numerous projects with major sports-related organizations and events such as Atlas Project, Lululemon, LYFT-RX and XPN World. See her portfolio: www.michelegrenierphoto.com
Latest posts by Michèle Grenier (see all)
- Free Photoshoots: Why Do I Do Them? - May 24, 2018
- How to Step Up Your Olympic Weightlifting Photography Game - May 15, 2018
- 4 Reasons Why You Should Consider Getting An Office Out From Your Home - April 25, 2018
How to Step Up Your Olympic Weightlifting Photography Game
So you’ve got a weightlifting event to cover and you'd like to get the most out of your day? Don't look any further: within these next lines, I'll share with you the best tips to get the highest impact and maximum intensity images at your next meet. Olympic Weightlifting (O-lift) includes two movements performed with an Olympic bar (barbell). Those two movements are called "the snatch" and "the clean and jerk". The first lift, the snatch, requires the athlete to lift the barbell from the ground to overhead in one continuous motion. The … [Read more...] about How to Step Up Your Olympic Weightlifting Photography Game
4 Reasons Why You Should Consider Getting An Office Out From Your Home
When we are at the beginning of our photographer career, we try to spend as little as possible on everything that doesn't seem necessary. By "necessary" of course, we mean our photography gear, camera body, lenses, bag, tripod, laptop. We don't necessarily think that renting an office is part of those basics expenses. Well, after reading this post, you might think about it twice! I have to admit it, I was more than a little scared when I signed my first lease contract a few months ago. I was barely out of school. I had no regular income. I … [Read more...] about 4 Reasons Why You Should Consider Getting An Office Out From Your Home
Improve Your Photography Skills For $0 – $5 with these Essential Tools
As a beginner photographer, we don't always have a killer budget to invest in education. I found some very useful tools over the years that helped me along the way without breaking the bank. Here are 5 totally FREE options to improve your photography skills! 1) YouTube This is such a powerful one. We have access to thousands of hours of free content right at our fingertips. Everything is in there. I can't tell you how many times I looked for video tutorials and how many times I found the answers in a matter of seconds. There are … [Read more...] about Improve Your Photography Skills For $0 – $5 with these Essential Tools
Why Your “Lightweight” Gear Works for Heavy Weight Pictures
I was looking at the picture from the cover of my previous article How to Step Up Your CrossFit Photography Game and I realized something really cool. This was actually one of my debut portraits in sports photography. It has been taken with my first camera: an old Nikon D5000. Even if I've taken thousands of cool pictures with better gear since then, I still really like this image two years later. That leads to something really important we should remember starting out photography: the gear doesn't make the photographer. Buy what you can … [Read more...] about Why Your “Lightweight” Gear Works for Heavy Weight Pictures
How to Step Up Your CrossFit Photography Game
Sports is an exciting yet intricate field of photography. CrossFit is perhaps one of the most exciting of all. I've been specializing in this amazing sport for over two years. I finally decided to gather my thoughts on the subject. Here is some of my top advice to get incredible athlete portraits on your next WOD-Workout Of the Day. Three essential components To me, a great action shot combines three essential elements: light, movement, and expression. A good action shot gets two of them. But a real jaw-dropping great picture hits all three. … [Read more...] about How to Step Up Your CrossFit Photography Game
Quick Tip: Unravel the Meanders of Your Mind
Okay, I take absolutely no credit for this one. When I saw Rich Harrington using this app, I just thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. I mean... it's like a map app for your brain! I had to share it with the world!!! So here it is the MindNode app. It helps you develop your ideas with branches instead of traditional lists. It is an app for Mac and iOS users. I'm not sure if we (Apple users) should brag about this or if we tend to have more mixed up ideas than Windows users... Never mind. It really helps my tremendously evasive … [Read more...] about Quick Tip: Unravel the Meanders of Your Mind
The Photoshop Action That Will Bring Your Sports Shots to Another Level
A few months ago, I discovered an amazing action to edit my sports shots in Photoshop. Everytime I use it, I get great feedback from my followers and athletes. Let me show you how you can, in one simple click, turn out a good picture into a massive impact work of art. What is a Photoshop action? An action, simply put, is a series of modifications that are recorded to obtain a precise result over and over again. An action can be as simple as a single saturation layer but can also be a very complex algorithm with hundreds of interrelated … [Read more...] about The Photoshop Action That Will Bring Your Sports Shots to Another Level
My First Aurora HDR 2018 Experience
I just got Aurora HDR 2018 and I couldn't wait to try it with different shots. What does it do? How do I feel working in this brand new environment? Here are my thoughts on my first hands-on experience with the software! Landscape I was pretty excited to edit some of the pictures we'd taken in Vegas last week. The sunrise was amazing and so was the scenery. I had an issue at the location: I forgot my tripod! That meant bye-bye to the standard three-or-more-exposures-merged-to-HDR technique and hello handheld camera. Since I wasn't in the … [Read more...] about My First Aurora HDR 2018 Experience
How I Got the Shot: Karate Class in Low Light
(Vanelli's note: Michèle Grenier, a talented sports photographer based out of Quebec City, Canada, needed 75 hours of mentoring before she could complete her degree in photography. After meeting her at Photoshop World a year earlier, she called to ask me if I could be her mentor—I’m based out of the East Coast of Florida. Honored, I said yes and, when she arrived, we dove into a 13-hour day of learning and shooting. To help reinforce her learning, I asked her to gather her thoughts and write a few “How I Got the Shot:" articles. Here’s what she … [Read more...] about How I Got the Shot: Karate Class in Low Light
How I Got the Shot: The High Jump
(Vanelli's note: Michèle Grenier, a talented sports photographer based out of Quebec City, Canada, needed 75 hours of mentoring before she could complete her degree in photography. After meeting her at Photoshop World a year earlier, she called to ask me if I could be her mentor—I’m based out of the East Coast of Florida. Honored, I said yes and, when she arrived, we dove into a 13-hour day of learning and shooting. Her first shoot was at a high school track-and-field event. To help reinforce her learning, I asked her to gather her thoughts and … [Read more...] about How I Got the Shot: The High Jump
