Researching: Automotive Photography

Before I became a photography-nut, I was a car-nut (as I still am). In fact, my love of cars is what got me started in photography. Ironically, looking at my current portfolio, their is a complete lack of any automotive photography. As my photographic style became more refined and I begin shooting more studio-lit commercial photographs, unfortunately my past ambient-lit car photographs did not truly fit into my current body of work.

A couple of weeks ago I was in Nashville, TN. Like usual, I had my camera at my side. Just taking some snapshots around town . . . nothing special. While out and about, I saw some gorgeous rides. Later when I uploaded my snapshots to Lightroom, I quickly begin to realize how badly I missed photographing cars.

However, I did not want to go back to the old safe way in which I use to photograph cars. I wanted to push myself and start incorporating studio lighting into the mix. Don’t get me wrong, beautiful even-natural-light can be the best source of light when photographing cars. Nevertheless, my style and artistic preferences are a little bit more bold . . . and ambient light alone just doesn’t do it for me anymore. If the job calls for it, I’ll go all natural. But, artificially lighting a car with some strobes just looks so much cooler.

To get back into automotive photography, I knew I needed to do my research. Whether I’m trying a new photographic technique or planning a photo-shoot, doing the proper research is always important. Thus, I searched the interwebs for some new knowledge and inspiration, concerning automotive photography. The following are some sources I found, in which I felt you’ll may find interesting and inspiring as well.

Thanks to the guys over at Fstoppers.com (@fstoppers) and photographer Blair Bunting (@BlairBunting), here is a short film on photographing cars in studio:

As a commercial photographer, one headline in particular grabbed my attention on Google: Great Direct Mail Piece Puts a Porsche in Your Driveway Sneaky move by Canadian auto dealer. Now this is what I call clever advertising: