What Changes Directing an Athlete vs. a First-Timer
Directing a sponsored professional athlete through a shot list and directing someone trying an activity for the first time in front of a camera are, in practice, almost entirely different jobs that happen to use the same equipment. I learned this distinction the hard way early on, applying the same direction style to both and getting noticeably weaker results with one group than the other until I understood why.
Most of my work these days is actually the second kind, friends and everyday adventurers doing an activity for the joy of it rather than pros pushing extreme performance limits, which has made understanding this distinction even more important to how I actually run a shoot day. If you want a fuller framework for directing subjects across a wide range of experience levels, I cover it in The Adventure Travel Photographer's Playbook. Here, I want to walk through exactly what changes when I'm directing an athlete versus a first-timer.
What a Professional Athlete Actually Needs From Direction
A sponsored professional athlete usually already knows their own body, their own limits, and often has a real sense of what looks good on camera from years of prior shoots. Directing this kind of subject is less about teaching them how to perform the activity and more about communicating exactly what the frame needs from a specific angle or moment.
I can use much more technical, shorthand language with a professional athlete, referencing a specific move by name, asking for a particular beat of an action sequence to be repeated with a slight adjustment, without needing to explain the underlying technique itself. That shared vocabulary speeds up communication enormously on a tight production schedule.
The direction conversation with a professional athlete is also more collaborative than instructional. Many have strong opinions about what will look and feel authentic, and the best results often come from treating their input as genuinely valuable rather than simply issuing instructions and expecting execution without discussion.
What a First-Timer Actually Needs From Direction
Someone trying an activity for the first time in front of a camera needs a fundamentally different kind of support. Before any conversation about framing or angles, there's often a genuine safety and comfort layer to establish first, making sure the subject actually feels secure enough in the activity itself to focus on anything beyond just not getting hurt.
Direction with a first-timer has to be far more concrete and immediate than the shorthand that works with a pro. Instead of referencing a named technique, I describe exactly what to do in plain, step-by-step language, and I expect to repeat and adjust that guidance multiple times as the subject builds basic comfort with the activity itself.
I've learned to keep expectations genuinely realistic with a first-timer subject. The goal isn't recreating a professional athlete's performance level, it's capturing a real, authentic moment of someone genuinely engaging with an activity, which requires a completely different definition of what a "good" shot actually looks like.
Building Trust Before Building the Shot
With a professional athlete, trust is often already partially established before the shoot even begins, built through the athlete's own experience working with photographers and understanding the collaborative process. With a first-timer, that trust has to be built in real time, often within the first few minutes of the shoot day.
I spend meaningfully more time with a first-timer subject before ever raising the camera, having a genuine conversation about the day, being transparent about what we're trying to capture, and making sure they understand there's no pressure to perform beyond their actual comfort level.
This trust-building time isn't wasted time, even though it doesn't produce any images directly. A first-timer subject who feels genuinely comfortable and unpressured produces far more authentic, usable images than one who's rushed straight into performing for the camera before any real rapport has been established.
Managing Safety Very Differently Across These Two Groups
A professional athlete usually has a well-calibrated sense of their own limits and can push closer to the edge of a technique safely, which changes what's actually achievable in the shot itself. Directing a pro often means asking for something genuinely difficult, trusting their judgment about whether it's safely executable.
With a first-timer, I default to a much wider safety margin, both because their own sense of their limits is genuinely less developed and because the consequence of pushing too hard isn't just a missed shot, it's a real risk to someone who trusted me to keep the day safe and manageable.
This difference changes the actual shot list itself, not just the direction style. A first-timer shoot is planned around what's safely achievable at a beginner skill level from the start, rather than planning an ambitious shot list and hoping the subject can rise to meet it on the day.
The Pace of a Shoot Day Changes Completely
A professional athlete shoot often moves quickly, since the subject can execute a requested action repeatedly and reliably, letting me focus my energy on framing, timing, and light rather than on managing the subject's basic execution of the activity itself. Setups can be planned tightly because the athlete's performance is a known, reliable quantity.
A first-timer shoot moves at a fundamentally different pace, with real time built in for the subject to simply get comfortable with the basic mechanics of the activity before a usable shot is even possible. Rushing this pace almost always produces worse results, since a genuinely uncomfortable subject reads clearly in the final images.
I've learned to plan shoot days with this pace difference explicitly in mind, building in far more buffer time for a first-timer-heavy production than I would for a shoot built around experienced athletes who can execute reliably and repeatedly on demand.
What Actually Makes a First-Timer Image Feel Authentic
Some of my favorite images from first-timer subjects capture something a professional athlete's polished performance often can't: genuine surprise, real effort, an unguarded moment of someone actually discovering something for the first time rather than executing a well-rehearsed performance for the camera.
Directing for this authenticity means resisting the urge to over-direct a first-timer into a more polished, performance-style pose or moment. Some of the strongest images come from stepping back at the right moment and letting a genuine reaction happen rather than requesting a specific expression or position.
I've had to actively unlearn some instincts here, since years of directing experienced subjects can create a habit of over-specifying exactly what a shot should look like. First-timer work often rewards the opposite instinct, creating the right conditions and then getting out of the way at the key moment.
How the Brief Itself Should Differ From the Start
When I know a shoot involves professional athlete talent, the pre-production brief focuses heavily on the specific action sequences, technical moves, and performance-level shots the client needs, since the subject's capability is already established and the planning can be ambitious accordingly.
When a shoot involves first-timer subjects, the brief shifts toward emotional and lifestyle beats, genuine reaction, camaraderie, the feeling of trying something new, rather than technical performance shots that a beginner subject simply can't safely or believably deliver on the day.
Getting this distinction right during pre-production matters enormously, since a shot list built around the wrong subject type sets up a shoot day to fail regardless of how well it's executed on site. I now confirm subject experience level explicitly before finalizing any shot list, rather than assuming and discovering a mismatch mid-shoot.
Where the Two Approaches Actually Overlap
Despite these real differences, some core principles apply regardless of who's in front of the camera. Clear, honest communication about what I'm looking for matters with both a pro and a first-timer, even though the vocabulary and detail level differ significantly between the two conversations.
Respecting a subject's own read on their limits also applies across both groups, even though those limits look very different in practice. A professional athlete's confident push toward a difficult move and a first-timer's honest "I'm not comfortable with that yet" deserve the same level of respect and responsiveness from me as the director.
Ultimately, both kinds of subjects are looking for the same underlying thing from me: clear communication, genuine attentiveness to how they're actually doing, and a shoot day that makes them look and feel like the best, most authentic version of themselves in front of the camera, whatever that version happens to look like for them specifically. If you want a deeper framework for directing subjects across a wide range of experience levels, it's covered in full in The Adventure Photographer's Playbook.
Directing a Mixed Group of Athletes and First-Timers Together
Some of the more demanding shoots I run involve both experienced athletes and first-timers in the same frame at the same time, a brand wanting to show a sponsored athlete alongside everyday participants, for example. Directing this kind of mixed group requires holding two entirely different direction styles active simultaneously without letting either subject feel neglected.
I've learned to sequence my attention deliberately in these situations, giving the first-timer subject the bulk of my direct coaching and reassurance before a take, then shifting to precise technical requests with the experienced athlete once the group's basic setup and comfort level is established. Trying to direct both simultaneously with the same language usually shortchanges one side.
The pacing of a mixed shoot also has to bend toward the first-timer's comfort level rather than the athlete's capability, since pushing the pace to match the more experienced subject risks rushing the beginner past their actual comfort zone. I brief the athlete on this explicitly beforehand, so their expectations about pace are realistic from the start rather than becoming a source of on-set frustration.
These mixed shoots often produce some of the most compelling lifestyle content precisely because of that contrast, genuine camaraderie between an experienced athlete and someone trying the activity for the first time reads as authentic in a way that's hard to manufacture with two subjects at the same experience level. Managing the direction carefully is what makes that authentic dynamic actually visible in the final images.
What Changes When the First-Timer Is Also the Client's Decision-Maker
Occasionally the first-timer in front of the camera is also someone with direct authority over the project, a brand founder or executive wanting to be featured trying their own product for the first time. This adds a layer of complexity beyond typical first-timer direction, since there's real professional pressure on that subject to look confident despite genuine inexperience with the activity.
I handle this by being especially deliberate about privacy and pacing, running practice attempts without the camera rolling until the subject has built enough real comfort that the eventual filmed attempt feels genuine rather than visibly nervous. Rushing a decision-maker subject straight into filmed takes tends to produce noticeably stiffer, less authentic results.
I've also learned to manage this subject's own expectations honestly and diplomatically, since a decision-maker sometimes assumes their authority over the project should translate into skipping the comfort-building process a typical first-timer would get. Explaining clearly why that process actually serves the quality of the final images has generally been well received, even from subjects unused to being directed by someone else.
Recognizing When a Subject Falls Between These Two Categories
Not every subject fits neatly into the professional athlete or complete first-timer categories, and some of the more interesting direction challenges come from someone with genuine recreational experience in an activity but no history of being directed in front of a camera. This middle category requires blending pieces of both approaches rather than defaulting entirely to one.
I treat the technical side of directing this kind of subject closer to how I'd direct a professional, since they usually have real physical competence and don't need step-by-step instruction in the activity itself. But I keep the comfort-building and pacing closer to first-timer territory, since being on camera, regardless of activity skill, is its own separate comfort zone that experience in the activity alone doesn't automatically cover.
Reading which pieces of each approach a given subject actually needs takes real attention during the first few minutes on set, watching for where genuine confidence shows up naturally versus where visible hesitation suggests more support is needed. I've learned to adjust in real time rather than committing to a single fixed approach before actually observing how a specific subject responds.
This middle-category direction has become increasingly common in my work as brands lean more heavily into authentic, everyday-participant content rather than pure professional-athlete performance. Getting comfortable reading and flexing between these approaches on the fly has become one of the more valuable direction skills I've developed over the years.
I've come to think of this reading process as the actual skill that separates strong direction from merely competent direction. Anyone can apply a fixed script to a professional athlete or a fixed script to a complete beginner. The real craft is in noticing quickly which subject is in front of you on a given day, since the same person can show up more confident on one shoot and more hesitant on another depending on factors that have nothing to do with their actual experience level.
This has also made me a more patient director generally, even in situations where I'm fairly confident about which category a subject falls into. Building in a few extra minutes at the start of any shoot to genuinely observe rather than assume has consistently paid off, catching the occasional case where an assumed-confident subject was actually more nervous than they let on, or where an assumed-nervous subject turned out to need far less hand-holding than I'd planned for. That extra patience has cost me almost nothing in practice, and it's saved more than one shoot from a mismatched, ill-fitting direction style that would have shown up clearly in the final images.
Ultimately, the specific label attached to a subject, athlete, first-timer, or somewhere in between, matters far less than the underlying discipline of actually paying attention to the person in front of the camera on that particular day. The categories are useful shorthand for planning, but the real direction happens in the specific, attentive moments between them.
Reflection Questions
- Does your current direction style flex between technical shorthand for experienced subjects and plain, step-by-step language for first-timers?
- How much time do you build in for trust-building with a first-timer subject before ever raising the camera?
- Is your shot list planned around the actual experience level of your subject, or built ambitiously and hoped to be matched on the day?
- Do you know how to step back and let an authentic, unguarded moment happen rather than over-directing it?
Dalton Johnson is a professional adventure and editorial photographer with over a decade of experience creating images on all seven continents. His client work includes Patagonia, GoPro, Arc'teryx, Four Seasons, Nike, Rivian, Big Agnes, Ford Bronco, and 160+ other brands. He runs Dalton Johnson Media as a full-service studio, from pre-production through post and distribution.