Lexus Hibrid SUV

In the past I have had the opportunity of photographing some amazing cars, not to mention driving them around town and looking way cool. Ha ha…

I love these Photo Shoots, mostly they are for one usage in a magazine and a writer will put a car review together to go with the pictures. Once it’s published in the magazine I can offer these images for use elsewhere if they are needed.

The trouble is no one knows what cars I have on file so I have decided to write a list below and anyone needing a specific model car can refer to what I have, make a request and I can send them contact sheets via email.

Most of the cars have been published in “Top Gear Magazine” New Zealand and is for Editorial Photography.

All of these Automotive Shoots I have thought through the style of car and what environment it would suit or contrast against therefore stand out, the creative is really up to me.

Great, lots of freedom with only a few parameters, which is usually just shots from every angle including interiors, and some cars are required to be moving.  All of the moving photography of cars I have needed to hire an assistant to drive, used two way radio’s and had the assistant drive by while I pan the camera with the passing car.

These photo shoots give me the opportunity to do some fantastic work for my portfolio and as an Imaginative Photographer I can come up with something really different. As Location Photography has to contend with the weather and magazines have deadlines I have actually had to be very versatile and sometimes shoot between rain showers or even under bridges, it’s not always ideal but It has meant I can still produce great shots in adverse conditions.

Lexus Hibrid SUV

The lists of Cars in my files are as follows:

Audi A4 – Silver, Audi A4 – Red, Audi A5 3.2 FSI – Silver,

Audi R8 Supercar – Silver & Black,

BMW M3 – White, BMW M3 – Silver, BMW 3 Series Convertible – Greeny Silver,

BMW 1 Series 135I – White

Chrysler CRD 300C – Silver, Dodge Avenger SXT – Red,

Ford Falcon XR6 – Silver, Ford Falcon XR8 – Light Blue,

Holden Commodore CrossX Ute – Blue,

Honda Odyssey – Silver, Hyundai Sante Fe Elite – Grey,

Jaguar XKR – Grey, John Cooper Mini Convertible – Black & White,

Kia Picanto – Red, Kia Magentis – Red,

Lexus IS250 – Sliver, Lexus Hybrid SUV – Light Colour,

Mercedes Benz C280 – Silver, Mercedes R350 SUV – Dark Blue,

Mitsubishi VRX – Red, Mitsubishi Outlander VR-X – Black,

Mitsubishi Outlander VR-X – Silver,

Lexus Hibrid SUV

Nissan Primera – Black, Peugeot 207 – Black,

Renault Laguna Hatch – Black,  Renault Laguna Wagon – Greeny Silver,

Saab 95 2.3t – Silver, Skoda Fabia TDI – Black,

Toyota Corolla GX Hatchback – White, Toyota Prada – Silver

Special Shoots: Rally car of “Emma Gilmore”- Subaru, Russ Swift – Stunt Driver with the Mini Cooper at Pukekohe, Kawasaki KLF300 Quad Bikes, Stock Cars, Helicopter Flying School – Latitude 37, Pontiac Firebird – Blue (Studio Shot)

80’s TV Car’s: Orange Charger from “The Dukes Of Hazard” (The General Lee), “Knight Rider” Car, Black (Kitt), Ferrari 308 GTS – Red from “Magnum PI” and Red & White Torino from “Starsky and Hutch.”

Lexus Hibrid SUV

Facebook has announced a new photo viewer that will allow you to upload images 2048 pixels wide to your page. That is 8 x larger than the old 720 pixel limit. The viewer also provides a nice way to page through the images in your albums.

Facebook have decided to include a link to all the images that allows all users to download the high-resolution image. This is something you would imagine should be able to be turned off but there is no such setting available.

Facebook changes are bad for professional photographers

So if you are worried about copyright of your photography portfolio then you should watermark everything or simply don’t upload such large images.

The answer is to be aware of what you are putting up on the web and the size of the images.

A lot of this work can be simple shots of the product packaged in the box it sells in or lying next to the packaging.

It gets tricky when the product is reflective or shiny, or in the case of this wine bottle, reflective, shiny and transparent.

To photograph a wine bottle like this you need to be able to darken the studio so no other light will affect the glass or gold label. Only the lights you use must affect the subject and each light must be looked at carefully through the camera with the others turned off to make sure the light is positioned properly and not creating any problems.

You might also consider placing the bottle on a glass so the table does not reflect into the front of the bottle.

You will require a background light so you can see the bottle is green and transparent. This needs to be positioned so it is illuminating the bottle evenly and not causing any flare in the camera lens.

Often with a bottle like this I will use long strips of black or white card to reflect back into the bottle or block light from getting to the bottle or flaring the camera.

The gold reflective logo is tricky because it requires a white card to make it shiny and golden but the best place for that card is directly in front of the camera lens.

Professional photography studios will have all the card and polystyrene to use for the lighting as well as the stands, clamps and clips to support and hold all the cards in the appropriate place.

By the time you have finished lighting and placed all the reflectors and cutters in place it is sometimes very hard to get to the bottle and not trip over things.

The final thing to do is balance the lights so the background light coming through the bottle is strong enough and the Main light is lighting the label enough.

With product photography lighting I use a flash meter to get the balance in lighting correct then do test shots as I work which come up on the computer so I can magnify the detail.

Prior to placing the bottle I usually scrape off the rear label on the bottle, get all glue residue off and clean it so no fingerprints or other marks are visible.

After I am happy with the lighting I remove the bottle and spray it with glycerine and water to give it that chilled look. This is all a delicate process where you don’t want to move your carefully placed lighting or mark the bottle. You also need to get the bottle back in the precise spot so the label is square, the bottle is straight and all your lighting is still doing what you had intended.

If you have other bottle shots then do them all together, with luck the lighting will be the same. It will change though if the shape of the bottle is even slightly different or the label graphics and colour tones differ.

The best thing to do particularly with photography for advertising is to use a professional photographer.

http://blog.vincentlaforet.com/mygear/configurations/

An excellent series put together by a master videographer and imaginative photographer.

http://tinyurl.com/yegjgr6

It may pay in the long run to have a custom image created by a professional photographer showing your actual staff that work in the company you are profiling, instead of highly styled photography by an American stock library. This will protect your client from the same image being used by other’s and give their customers the assurance they are a legitimate company with real people that work there, not professional talent.

Composition is critical because it’s very easy to centre the horizon line, which will give the effect of being two images, the sky and the land. The other thing to watch is to keep the horizon line level otherwise it feels like the earth is tipping over.

One last thing to be aware of is the format of the image. Landscape pictures inherently suit the panoramic format, which is a very long horizontal image. A panoramic photographer will often have a dedicated panoramic camera in their kit bag. These shoot the image directly onto film as a long format. At this time I’m not aware of a digital model. Some digital camera’s do offer the panoramic option but all they do is crop off the top and bottom of the image for you. You are better off to do this yourself afterwards, that way you can keep a copy of the original in case you want a version without the cropping.

Be aware that some uncropped images may have a lot of dead space in the sky or other parts of the image and it might pay to experiment with a bit of cropping to see what looks best.

Gold Coast Landscape Photography.

Light being the second secret to successful landscape photograph’s, you will find the light at midday can be very harsh with the difference in highlight and shadow detail too great to capture both the shadows and highlights with enough detail.

You will find early morning and late afternoon light a lot softer and warmer with the shadows being longer giving interest to the scene.

One thing to watch out for is if the sky is very bright and the land has quite a few darker objects such as forests, you may not capture all the detail in the sky that you may see with your naked eye. In this case you could consider using filters such as a polariser or graduated ND filter.

When I think of landscape photographers I immediately think of Ansell Adams who was famous for his large format Black and White photographs in America such as at “Yosemite National Park”, but there are many a skilled photographer that can shoot fine landscapes, what you need is patience, unspoilt scenery and early morning or late afternoon light.