Last weekend, I picked up one of our cars that had been slightly modified. I decided I wanted to take photos of it for fun, and they turned out quite fun to make and interesting.
I’m not a vehicle photographer. I don’t remember ever doing it other than a steam train once 20 years ago in the Lake District. So it’s not something that I’d normally seek to do by lack of interest.
But recently, the red car in these photos was changed: it’s now mat black. The bright red wasn’t my kind of colour and I wanted something that is more me. I already have a mat black car (what a pain to clean but such fun to drive) and I thought that was something that would work for it.
Despite the foggy weather that made the contrast really low, I decided to give it a go in my courtyard. I took the 1DX with the 50mm f/1.4 because I was thinking that it would be a good focal length that would allow me to get close but also have more global shots, and it’s a very versatile lens that wouldn’t distort things too much.
I concentrated on details a lot. I’m not that interested in cars per se, so I’m not that keen on large shots of cars for the sake of it. I was more interested in how different colours and textures play with each other.
A lot of the shots were taken wide open. That allowed me to get rid of most of the surroundings. I didn’t have much room, the car was between an old gate, a barn, and two walls. I could just about walk around it. The conditions were not ideal, but I was just testing the idea. If I did it again more seriously, I’d move it to a wider space so that I can properly frame what I want. And I’d wait for a sunny morning or evening to get much better colours.
And I have to say, after a little while I started getting interested and taking what I was doing more seriously. I went from “heh! Let’s play with this for 5 minutes” to “this is quite good, I want to do this well”.
I ended up with a few photos I really liked that I put here. They’re unmodified, straight out of the camera. I don’t think they need much processing.
Now, thinking about it, I could get interested in doing this again. Trying to find interesting angles and details that attract the eye was fun. Looking at that (boring) car in a different way was also very interesting. I can understand why people get into this.
#Photography #Car #CarPhotography