Harder than I thought :) Critique please
- This topic has 12 replies, 7 voices, and was last updated Oct 18, 2007 at 9:32 am by
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I had a resotration company approach me about shooting some of their cars, while I was back in the states. I wasn’t to sure about it but decided that I would give them a look and perhaps an attempt, as I have never shot classics professionally. Any way, they roll out this amazing 1965 Corvette on me and I decided that I need to at least give this a try. I left all of my lighting equipment here in Lithuania so, I told them that the first one would be free as I didn’t know how well I would be able to do the shoot.
WOW! This turned out to be far more complicated than I thought as I thought that shooting a car would really be no big complicated deal, then the reality of light reflections came into my nightmares lol.. I learned this was going to be far more time consuming than I first thought but the challenge drew me even deeper into this project. As I said before, I had no lights and fill flash just would not do it. My solution was using one of the shop utility lights and put it behind a defuser panel. I then had to shoot each section of the car while paying attention to making sure that I only got reflections where I wanted them to be. Had to map out the final image in my head so that I could stitch everything together in PS.
I had to rebuild the car with a total of 20 images that I had isolated into body part images. After finally stitching, blending and directing the light reflections; I realized that I had forgotten to take images of the tires, with different paths and intensities of lighting on them. So, the solution was to go to a night back ground and se if I could blend it in that way.
I am not sure that I pulled it all off the way that I wanted and I really don’t want to hand in sub par work so, I thought that I would post it here for some honest opinions. The amount of time and effort that I have put into this has kind of diluted my brain from just looking at the completed work. Your honest opinions would be of great value to me and I really do appreciate it a lot. Thanks!!
Oh yes, the Corvette is for sale at a small price of $115,000.00 USD 🙂
Hi Ben,
Beautiful car ..
The car element of the shot looks great – nice smooth lighting and good detail, but IMHO the background takes a bit too much away from it and is too strong to make the car really stand out.
I also think there’s too much black in the forground ( not sure if that’s just the low rez for web post ? )
www.dsaphoto.com
A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.
Thanks all… One thing that I have learned is that my opinion really does not matter on a completed project so your comments are very helpful for me. I am so angry that I did not remember to take some shots of just the tires as well and due to that, I have limited data on them and cannot shade them in the way that I wanted to.. I always liked this night shot of Vilnius and wanted to use it for something and thought that this might be a good application. After reading your thoughts, I see that I had actually incorporated an image that I liked and overlooked the fact that it does distract and it is easier to see that processed look that you mentioned now. Due to the fact that I did not get enough data on the tires, I thought that maybe just going to a completely processed look might be a solution. I am going to be over here for about 6 months this time and due to that, I don’t have the luxury of shooting any of the car again.
I agree with you David, I don’t think this is something that I really want to do again as they are very time consuming and would require a pretty good investment into more equipment.. Must say that I do have a whole new admiration for those photographers that do this sort of shooting professionally though 🙂
Oh yes, sorry to hear about the hair thing ;D
Great piece of stitching – now it looks sensational, especially considering how you had to put it together.
😎Morsie
That looks a lot better just on black – well done.
I love the car photography in the high end Pommy car magazines like Top Gear and Car, they really put a lot into a shoot and get some great stuff – I’ve even pinched a few of their ideas for people shoots.
Car photography for advertising is on a whole new level, some of the shoots take days and cost up to half a million dollars here – and a lot are now shot in UnZud.
A gaffer at a music video I was doing stills on the other day told me about a car shoot they did where they had to make an overhead scrim that was 30 x 50 meters
www.dsaphoto.com
A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.
Thanks mates 😉 I don’t think that I will be doing this type of shooting again though. It is sad to say but I enjoyed the stitching more than the shoot Morsie lol.. I have 6 months before I am due back in the states so, that gives me plenty of time to decide but I think that I am going to just take the loss on this type of shooting, this time. Sure, it would be nice to have one of those large budgets but I am like you David, prefer to admire the car images more lol
Thanks for the tips John. I left all of my gear back here in Europe and was not about to go out and purchase more so, I decide to try and heavily PS the work instead. Some nice tips that you offered but for me, I just don’t seem to enjoy shooting this type of photography as much as I prefer to just be an admirer of it :). Plenty of work is available from this company and they did want me to do more shoots for them but I will have to think hard on it before investing in the proper type of equipment before shooting again…
Ben
I agree with the others, the second photo looks better to me, but in either case, Beautiful Car!Hey Ben,
I remember seeing somewhere about some new book on car photography from one of the big names in the trade.
I’ll have to have a fish around for the title..
I want to get it myself, lots of the negetive lighting you do with cars could be applied to all sorts of photography so it should be useful..
www.dsaphoto.com
A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.
Thanks Barry it really is an awesome restoration but I am not pleased with the final image, just glad that I did it as a one time freebie..
Hey David, I agree with the lighting and I too would love to incorporate that feel into other shots. if you will, let me know that title of that book as well. If I see a chapter on how to use a shop utility light and lots of stitching, I will be tossing it into the bin quickly. lol
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