It's that time of the year for Australian Photographers, the Canon photo5 competition was held again this year, and again I forgot to enter. 2 from 2, 100% complete failure.
It had been a while since I have taken a photo purely because I enjoy doing so, with some spare time this afternoon I had a look at the little brown box and tried to do something with it besides throw it in the bin, I came up with an idea, something I had seen on the cover of the New York Times a while back. I decided I would use the blue crayon that was inside my box and put it to good use.
I went down into the studio (you may have one in your home too, it's called a white wall) and setup shop, couple of bare flashes powering into the wall.
I needed a model, so I focused on the tripod and then left the focus as is, I thought if I stood in line with the tripod I would also be in focus... it worked. Starting to look like something here.
Seconds after the photo was taken, My arm hit the tripod and.....
RIP Vivitar DF4000MZ - You will be missed.
So now I needed a background, so I got out my pen and some paper and just drew random crap all over it. No I was not drunk.
Time to get photoshopping and merge the images into a composite.
This was rather straightfoward, I did an exposure for me, the wall, a bunch of crayon shots (same crayon just relocated) an exposure for the floor and one of the paper.
It's nearing midnight… a suspicious skeletal framed man staggers down the alleyway. Ahead he sees a wide body Yellow S15 blocking his path… he speeds up. "Here we go!" I think to myself as I grab a rig pole ready to lay some junkie smackdown, he see's us… pauses. The look of on his face is a mixture of fear and confusion, 3 guys standing in a dark Surry Hills Laneway with metal poles, cameras and a car blocking the road. I would have been scared too. Then ever so carefully, he tip toes around the car like a toddler. I look at my assistant Matt, he smiles, I laugh out loud, it was hilarious.
Yep, In one of my stupider moments, I conducted a full scale shoot out the front of a city methadone clinic… Why? I'll never really be able to answer that one. Maybe because it was a cool location, maybe because it was close to my car…. Maybe I wanted to live dangerously and have all my gear stolen, in Hindsight it was not the best place to be.
Pak's car is just plain awesome, Cwest widebody, Black Volk TE37's, Perfect Yellow paint and a healthy 240rwkw SR20DET. I knew a night shoot would be the perfect way to make this car stand out, but I wanted to try some new techniques that night, so it was a trial and error affair. It had been some time (almost a year) since I had done my last night shoot, using a tripod again was a shock to the system. The time it takes to do a shoot was also greatly increased, 4 hours in total in the end, 30 second exposure times mean a long time between shots, luckily I had company.
Gear for this shoot was a bit different to the normal, As usual the Canon 1Dsmk2 and G9 for backup/video usage, but no multiple flashes this time around. With long exposures I had the ability to just handhold a single Nikon SB800 and use it to "paint" the car with light, this worked rather well at low power not giving off any hotspots or nasty reflections. Lens for the whole shoot was the Canon 24-70 2.8L with circular polariser. Also used for the shoot was a camera rig setup for rolling shots.
My system for shooting was to pick an angle and stick with it, been night time with such long exposures the ability to light each part of the car completely was a bonus. Using a very small aperture as well to obtain total clarity from corners to the centre of the image. But all the shots were done as one exposure rather than a tricky composite later on. Finding the right mix of light painting and not keeping in the frame was tricky. As this was a very dark location, Finding focus was also difficult. My assistant shined a torch on the car to make finding focusing easier.
After completing the front and rear shots, we moved onto the rolling shots, this involved placing a large boom onto the vehicle and moving the camera in total unison with the vehicle to create a unique movement effect. The use of Suction cups, poles and clamps is used to hold the rig onto the vehicle. The car is then rolled very slowly with a long shutter speed to give the impression of movement. When done correctly it can have very striking results. The rig is then cloned out of the image later in post processing, this is a very long and dangerous task that can take hours, so it is imperative that as possible is done to minimize this work by making sure the background and lighting is going to be suitable later in post production to fix.
After packing all the equipment back into the truck and driving home I was tired, hungry and it was by Then Monday morning. 4 hours was long for a shoot but I think it was worth it. At least the junkies didn’t steal my gear.
Big Thanks to my Assistant for the night Matt Mead - http://www.matthewmead.net/ and the Cars awesome owner Pak for been just a nice guy and providing such a hot S15.
The reason I started this blog was to give a bit of an inside look to how I go about taking photos of vehicles, plain and simple really. If it helps someone that’s great, if you chuckle at how dodgy I do things that’s also fine by me, but lately as get more and more feature car work you see the somewhat secret squirrel lives that are Automotive Photographers.
I remember when rig shots started becoming more and more popular in Australian Magazines like Wheels and Motor and wondering "how the hell did they do that" these were not the usual whole car in frame shot either, just a simple wheel shot or even an interior view. I researched Google for what seemed like hours and found the original "stickypod" product sold in the USA and thought it was pretty cool. Anyway… time passed on and soon I was witnessing guys on Photography Forums using the same technique, people were asking from every direction "how did you do that" or "is it all Photoshop" only to receive a reply from the Author saying "sorry it's a secret" oh c'mon… stick some poles out a car and push it, hardly rocket science.
As more and more of these shots became common place, the techniques for capturing them soon became well known, Hobbyist photographers were producing work that often put to shame "professional" old school Automotive photographers and there was starting to be a shift in trends as Generation Y photographers took over.
Complex composites, Intricate lighting setups and just plain creativity were now ruling the roost, and as a willing and eager youngin myself I was on a mission to do the same. I'd try and replicate the styles of the more creative photographers, dissecting their techniques through trial and error. I met some cool people along the way who made comments and criticism's on my work and it drove me to keep at it.
Around 2.5 years ago emailed a certain Australian photographer based in Sydney (name withheld lol) and asked him a few questions about how he goes about his work, how he almost has no reflections, how he finds locations etc. The reply I got from him was in Summary "piss off kid" This bummed me out something bad… all I wanted to do was learn, I wasn't out to take his job or steal his clients, I was just a young kid with a passion for cars and camera's and this brings me to the meat in my rant sandwich.
Whenever possible, I try and take someone with me on a shoot, someone who is like I used to be, keen and committed to learning. If they learn one thing from the day and put it into practice then my job is done, wether it be a simple thing like positioning of the car or something on a different tangent like location scouting or logistics then that’s good. I'm not playing my own trumpet here saying I'm this world renowned guy teaching guys Automotive stuff like I'm Jesus, I'm still a small fish in a big pond in the grand scheme of things but I'm a fish who is willing to teach other fish to get bigger.
About a year ago, Mark Pakula Autosalon Magazine http://www.markpakula.com/blog/ invited me down to a Photoshoot he was doing for a Cover car, in those 4 hours I spent with him I learnt more than I had in 2 years of trial and error on my own! No kidding my head was literally filled with information and ideas to put into my own work. It's this kind of stuff you cant learn from reading a photography website, you have to be there… why is something done like this, why is that reflector there, why did you turn the wheels to exactly 39.99 degrees, no forum can teach that.
So for those of you out there that do know what you are doing when it comes to using a camera, whether it be taking photos of cars or smokin hot chicks… Grab a youngster and teach them something, show them the ropes, make them carry your gear and get your lunch but most importantly… remember how hard it was for yourself starting out.
And as for the guy that told me to "piss off" all those years ago, well I received an email from him asking for advice on using small flashes not too long ago… how the tables had turned.
Half the battle of Automotive photography is not only finding potential feature cars or clients, but rather locations to do the shoot. In fact of late I have had more car's scheduled than locations to take them, so in a bid not to double up on previous locations I spent a day travelling around Sydney for some new spots.
Although there is no set rules as to what location suits a particular vehicle, I tend to pay attention to how they relate. The overall theme of the shoot can be determined by the location, think carefully about how the location compliments the vehicle, do they have a fitting connection?
Some examples of a vehicle and suitable locations are:
Race car on a racetrack (wow captain obvious) Long time Project Car in a workshop Japanese Sports car near a Japanese Garden, or under a cherry blossom Midnight Street Racer under a dark highway overpass Elegant Luxury car in the driveway of a mansion Those are just some ideas off the top of my head.
So getting back to the original story, I scheduled a day just to find some fresh locations. It was a nice day so got in the car, blasted the stereo and just drove…. No particular place in mind, just a end goal of finding some new spots for upcoming features.
What a battle that turned out to be! I spent maybe 4 hours driving only to find 3 average spots. Nothing that really impressed me.
I like a location that first of all is interesting, yet not too cluttered to detract from the car. It needs to suit the vehicle but right now I had no real cars in mind just on the hunt for locations. But another point often overlooked is the accessibility for Lowered cars. Security, Traffic and bystander rate also needs to be taken into consideration when I choose a spot. Often the best places are illegal to be seen in as I found out early on in the piece (hello Balmain Cement works remember me!)
This is where Mr Technology comes into play.
My mobile phone, a nokia 6110 Navigator has GPS navigation on it, if I find a new spot whilst on my travels, I simply add a point of interest to my maps and done, longitude and latitude co-ordinates and ready for future scoping out, I'll check it out on a weekend afternoon (when I do most shoots) and if it meets the criteria of low traffic, easy access then it's a keeper ready for the next car that suits the theme.
Perhaps the biggest tech breakthrough for finding locations is Google Maps, and more specifically it's "Street view" function. This is simply better than sliced bread in my opinion, I don't even need to leave my house to go location scouting. Just browse my way through the country clicking random streets or industrial estates, double click the street and voila… I'm given a 360 degree photo of the street.
A helpful hint, look for major roadways, but more specifically look for overpasses and access roads to these major Highways. These access roads are open to the public but lead to nowhere so often there is a suitable spot there.
I'll update soon, With a Shoot the spot was found via Google Street view!
One thing that bugs me is when people ask "what settings were you using" when in Photography there is no real right or wrong settings for a particular situation. I have rules I tend to abide by but that is just personal preference when I shoot. I have relatively steady hands and almost always shoot handheld so I tend to run as low as 1/60th combined with the flash to get a sharp result. For aperture I like to stick around the f8/10 range as the car remains in focus and optically my lens/camera excels here. I always use a circular polariser, if you do any car/bike photography then these are a must as it controls and often completely cuts out unwanted reflections on metallic objects so I make sure I always have my CPL handy. Other than that it's often just a case of trial and error, I run the flashes flat out at full power for the sole reason I can place the flashes further away from the car and obtain a wider spread of light, recycle times are increased but If you cant wait 4 seconds between shots you need a lesson in patience. No light meters, Umbrellas, 10,000W strobes with diesel Generators, 20 man production teams or professional photo retouchers here I'm afraid
A friend of mine has been bugging me for a while (sorry Ben) for some pics of his CBR1000RR. So while I was doing that, I thought may as well make a day of it and bring all the boys bike over for a Photoshoot.
All the Big 4 1000’s are there, a real Superbike showdown and a lone blue Kwaka 600.
4636cc’s of Japans finest in under 3 hours, I had my hands full.
The contenders of the Superbike battle are;
Ben: CBR1000 “LITRE”
Luke: ZX10R “Wheelie King”
Kirky: GSXR1000 “600’s are weak”
Tommo: R1 “The Yellowbird”
Proudly Supported by Vukie in “Blue diamond”
Finding a location was a stroke of luck, after a bit of a drive around what I thought was a closed industrial estate (the place was packed) we come across a small substation with a semi interesting background, time to get shooting.
I set up my trusty poor mans lighting setup consisting of a single 2 strobe setup, A SB600 camera left at full power (thanks Tommo) triggered by PT04 Radio Transmitter and a Sigma DG500 camera right full power triggered by Optical Slave.
As it was full sun, I had to really use every bit of power from the strobes, both were set to full power with the sigma zoomed to 70mm for a bit more punch. The placement of the strobes was really close to the subject so to not lose any power.
The whole point was to overpower the sun and give a nice dark moody sky, the old “sunny 16 rule” was tried first (1/125 @ f16 iso100) it gave a pretty good starting point, dropped it down to f11 and I was in business.
The good thing about doing a bit of a production line of bikes was the lighting setup barely changed at all, just move the bike in, snap away and move it away, rinse and repeat. 5 bikes in a bit over 2 hours was a good effort, time for some rolling shots.
My main man Steve hopped in my Ute (jealous of the power) and I layed in the tray, Ben followed in his red rocket and I snapped away, using the age old rule of speed relating to shutter time, we were going approx 35-40kph so I used a shutter of between 1/60th and 1/3
0th to get the shots I wanted. After a quick u-turn I explained to Ben we are going to have to act this one out a bit and I got him to tuck down like he was doing mach 10,the sad truth is his bike nearly overheated from going so slow.
And that was it, 5 bikes in a day. Not a bad effort.
Check my flickr stream for all the images:
http://flickr.com/photos/brasher/
Some out-takes for your enjoyment. (Thanks to Ben Lehner)
A very tough looking S15 (Jap Import) with HKS/Veilside Widebody, Impressive responsive SR20DET with good power and a stylish yet purposeful interior. A very nice all round car, show and go!
Once again, Sydney's summer has resembled that Crappy Kevin Costner movie "Waterworld" and proceeded to rain on the day of the original shoot, we rescheduled and yet again a severe storm erupted just as we arrived at the meet up spot. It was now or never, so we decided to just look for an undercover spot and make do.
My friend Michael who was helping out for the day is a local to the area, so we went for a drive to find an undercover location, Out of nowhere; Michael slammed on the brakes, did a U-turn and said "I know the perfect spot!" 2 minutes later we arrived. He wasn't wrong.... this place was pretty good!
We pulled into the driveway, a loading dock for some sort of industrial centre. It was a Sunday so not a car or truck to be seen. The Silvia entered; its lumpy cams sent an echo through the loading docks reverberating from the roof and walls. We got to cleaning up the car, Chamois to the rescue, and I got to setting up my dodgy poor mans lighting setup.
The owner wanted a side on shot first, so the car was driven up the loading dock ramp and positioned to centre the car in front of the garage door.
As with a lot of the location shoots I do, I used small off camera strobes to illuminate the car and highlight the stunning Work Rims and flared guards.
For this Photoshoot, I used:
- Canon 1dsmk2
- Canon 24-70 2.8L
- Canon 70-200 2.8L
- Cactus PT04 V2 Flash Trigger system (poverty wizards - the fact they work every time impresses me)
Sigma DG500 super - Optically slaved, I placed this flash behind the car to illuminate the blue roller door behind the car and separate it a bit from the background. (1/4 power)
Achiever TZ250 - Full Power (sliders all to the right) camera left (aimed at wheel)
Sunpak 3000 - Full Power camera right (aimed at wheel)
Once I got underway, I realised the strobes were a bit too low to illuminate the car, but there was no choice. Unfortunately I do not have proper light stands, rather I use old Tripods and prop the lights on top. Even at full extension, they were not high enough.
Making do with what I have, I tried to stop down the ambient light by approximately 2/3rds a stop below my metered ambient light and let the strobes do the rest of the work. As it was still quite bright even under the roof I really used every bit of power I could from the small strobes. Perhaps an upgrade is in order.
I particularly like the smooth line produced wheel arches, I used a circular polarizer to control the reflections.
To make the day even more confusing, the rain had stopped and the sun peered through the clouds, we decided to venture to the original location we had decided on while the rain had stopped.
After driving into the narrow laneway I decided it was best to have the sun behind the car and to backlight it a bit, this proved to be a major hassle as the owner had to skilfully perform a 20point u-turn in such a tight spot.
This time, I really wanted to kill the ambient lighting off to emphasise how dark and stormy the clouds looked, off the top of my head I set up my shutter speed/aperture to be nearly 1 2/3rd stops below ambient. As the sun was rapidly setting I had enough power from the strobes to easily illuminate the car. To avoid the look of light spill over on the ground I got on my stomach (the ground was still wet damn!) Using the telephoto lens to get a good distance from the subject and a very undistorted view of the car.
As you can see, there was still plenty of available light, using the strobes you can precisely control the highlights/shadows of a scene with a bit of fiddling about.
A bit of a curves adjustment and colour balance to emphasise the reddish glow the sun gave through the clouds was the post processing involved. I also cloned out the small highlights the strobes give off when fired bare into the car. The drainpipe was removed from the building to clean up the image a bit more.
We ventured back to the original location to do the rear shots. I decided to use the grungy looking brick wall that climbed right to the roof. Once again the strobes were placed around the car (2 on the side aiming at the wheels, one at the back) and got to work. Ambient light had really diminished now so some very extreme hand held shots had to be taken with the poise of a military sniper.
This shot looks pretty cool, like a light shining from heaven or something supernatural.
Again pretty much straight off the camera with a few blemishes cloned out.
For a bit of fun, I did a rolling shot and experimented with the colour balance later in photoshop, for some reason I really like the shot, sort of evil in a wierd way.
Thanks to the car's owner Tony, here is a bit of a behind the scenes video clip he took while I was snapping away. Also a big thankyou to Michael Vettas (http://mvettasphotography.com ) for showing me around the local area and assisting me.
A friend of Mine asked me to Grab some shots for his Father's Golf R32 to get some large formate prints done. It's a very nice car, amazing sounding aftermarket exhaust, Coilover suspension etc.
After arriving at his house, we set off. Of all days to do a photoshoot it was a cold rainy summerday in Sydney. After driving for 10 minutes or so to find a suitable location, we spotted this one in an industrial area. The crates were used for a windscreen shop and made for an interesting (yet cluttered) background.
As soon as we arrived, it started to rain, then stop, then start again. Finally the decision was made and I made a start setting up my gear. For this I used:
I propped them all on tripods and got to work, all setup it looked like this.
Without the flash, it looked flat and boring
The whole point is to adjust my aperture and shutter speed to kill the ambient light but still capture the flash on the car, take note the shot below was taken in broad daylight (well overcast)
So I got in my flattering ground humping position.
And came up with this:
1/90th sec @ f8 ISO 200 105mm
Post processing was the clouds in background and removal of the downpipe on building, basic levels and a bump in saturation (1ds in "normal" colour mode is very flat, but accurate)
Looking back, not bad but not good. Biggest concern is the reflection on the bonnett of the car, even with the polarizer set at full tilt, the reflection remained. Background is also still a bit too busy.
In the end though, my mates father was stoked with the final image which is what really matters.
Thanks to Ben Wood for the behind the scenes shots.
Bit of time since I last updated here, anyway... continuing on from my last post. I did get that camera I was lusting for, It is full frame.... but it's not a 5D.
Yes, I scored the deal of the century, no wait.... the millenium, on a second hand Canon 1dsmk2.
Most amazing peice of photographic gear I have ever had the pleasure of holding, huge bright veiwfinder, amazing detail in the images and perfect colour representation. They say once you go full frame you never go back, and I can see why. This camera is the equivilant of holding god in your hands.
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