7 steps to great car photography

After recording the "How to photograph a car (and people)" course, with Michael Wearne, right here at thePhotography Campus. I went home completely inspired.

Only problem was, my mighty mazda didn't really inspire me with its crumpled front bumper (don't ask) and layers of dirt.

Then amazingly the next day, John a mate of mine, asked me to photograph his much loved, infinitely cleaner Subaru for an upcoming car club competition.

Brilliant! Here was my chance.

The entire process was really challenging and great fun. It was all achieved by pretty much following these seven steps.

The Bolte Bridge looking west from the city of Melbourne (right).

1. Pick a great Location.

Locations are so important in any shot. They say so much about the main subject, whether that subject be a person, a building or a car.

The competition demanded the location be 'typically' Melbourne. So the first thing we had to do was  think of somewhere that;

1.  Suited the car.
2.  Was accessible for as long as we needed it to be.
3.  Gave us a choice of directions to shoot (ie in to the sun or away from it).
4.  Was free or cheap.
5.  Was Melbourne without being too old hat or obvious.

Luckily another friend of ours, Tim decided to get in on the action. He assured us he knew of some great spots so we allowed him one night of driving around to prove his worth! As the brief was 'don't make it too obvious', luna park, graffiti walls, flinders street station, the shrine and st kilda pier were immediately crossed out - not because they're not photogenic, but because we figured others would be shooting there already.

John's car is a souped up Subaru Forrester. It reeks of adventure and independence. It needed a place which whilst urban, still had an element of freedom and dynamism. 

TIP: Car locations should always reflect the spirit of the car.

After a couple of hours Tim had his spot. A car park in the Docklands that offered the Bolte Bridge and the water as its backdrop and a roughed up cement floor with a wide blue painted line as its stage.

He had me at the blue painted line. it was going to fit the car perfectly, complement the silver metal and look really strong with the setting sun.

John giving his baby a bath (left)

2. Make sure the car looks awesome - before you even pick up the camera.

I can't stress this point enough.

I had always planned on retouching. Because cars demand it what with all their reflections. Also I love retouching.

I hate retouching stuff though, that I should have had the foresight to fix in camera or on location. Things like bags in the background I forgot to move, or tripods I forgot to pick up!

John detailed the car too within an inch of its life with:

1. Armoral.
2. Tyre blacking spray.
3. Water.
4. A great deal of rubbing, wiping and polishing.

This made a huge difference to both the actual shoot and post production.

3. Position, position, position.

This is where the course "How to photograph a car (and people)"  with Michael Wearne, really, really helped.

In it Michael stresses how important it is to spend the time positioning the car for the best look.

It's easy to feel rushed especially when you have people waiting for you but believe me, it's one of the the most important things you can do.

The audience for this shoot was the judges, and they are the other members of John's car club. They would want to see all the important parts of John's car. The special wheels and brake disks, the grill and bonnet and the side of the car with the specific badges on it.

We played around with how we should make the most of the setting sun. Would we be better featuring it directly or photographing with it behind us and just catching it's glow? We decided it had to be behind the car, so we could see the bridge clearly. So we positioned the car on the blue line and set the tripod for a front 3/4 shot. This is the classic way most car brands photograph their vehicles. It makes them look slightly aggressive and as if they are ready to roll. That was going to suit the style of our car beautifully.

We nudged the car along the blue line so the pylons of the Bolte Bridge didn't look as if they were coming out of the centre of the car. We were ready to light.

4. Light the important part of the car to make them pop put from the background.

I had two Nikon Speedlights with me. The SB800 and the SB900. They can be controlled on my camera the Nikon D3 by a device called the SB200.

I operate them wirelessly so I can whack the camera on my tripod and change the amount of light each one provides with each flash.

I had one flash pointing to the grill. This flash shot through a shoot through umbrella which made the light spread wider and be softer. This really helped because I didn't want the light to be too harsh on the grill as it would created blowouts on the metal. 

I positioned the second flash facing towards the right hand side of the car. It had no diffuser on it. Not because it didn't need it, but because I left it at home!

This made it more difficult to control because it was causing blowouts on the tyre. the challenge here was to have it strong enough but not too strong.

I then underexposed the rapidly darkening sky (it was sunset). this made the sky dark. By lighting the main bits of the car and hoping some of the light will spill around the curves of the car, i was able to make the car 'pop out' from the dark background.

5. Where I went wrong and how I fixed it.

The great thing about photographing in the real world is you make real mistakes and get real learnings from them.

In no particular order here's mine:

1. I forgot the second diffuser. This meant I had to spend a lot of time moving the second flash so it wouldn't over light some bits of the car.
2. I forgot the second light stand. This meant I had to get John to hold the second flash because if I rested it on the ground (which is how I started) it created a spot light on the ground as well as the car. I didn't want this as it drew the eye to the wrong spot.
3. I forgot the sand bags. It was windy, of course. At home it was still but once I got by the water there was a strong breeze and the umbrella kept threatening to sail away. If I had sand bags I could have placed them on the base of the tripod but....instead Tim got the job of holding the light stand and umbrella on terra firma.
4. I didn't bring a second set of batteries for the speedlights. This wasn't a huge issue because by the time the batteries ran out we'd taken a lot of shots...fortunately.

6. Catch the sun right on dusk to help avoid reflections.

This isn't so much a rule as a handy tip. You may not want dusk as such in which case ignore this. What I like about dusk is the light is so intense it is just beautiful. Also I found the reflections were much worse once the sun had completely dropped from the sky. This is because this was the cue for the carpark lights to turn on. In itself that wasn't such a bad thing because it made an amazing spotlight but all the surrounding lights came on as well 9from buildings across the water) and they immediately reflected in the silver metal of the car. Dusk was great because the surrounding lights were't yet on, yet the sky was rich and deep.

7. Keep the camera fixed in the same position to make it easy to combine photographs.

I knew I would be combining shots. I wanted the freedom to swap skies easily. 

This is a relatively simple thing to do if you keep the camera locked off and don't move it. Obviously don't move the car either. Then in Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom or Adobe Photoshop Elements you can layer the shots more easily.

We will be doing posts and courses on combining shots soon here at the Photography Campus.

So there you have it. Seven things to process when you shoot cars.

I really enjoyed the experience and John is a happy camper.

Now let's see how he goes in the competition!

So over to you guys. Have you tried any car photography? If so is there anything I've missed out on here?