experiences searched for car photography....

[rainer_viertlb_ck]

i tried to photograph historic cars for a museum i am working for. and

i reached more problems as i expected,trying to shot in a great hall

which was not prepared as a car studio should be.the reflections were

just unmanageable. so my question...has anyone goodideas how to

photograph cars.......without going in a specialized studio and / or

with renting such a studio. i know the question let a lot of room for

answering it...but i am interested to receive some experiences from

your side...

[steve_levine]

Cars are shot the same as any metalic object.The light is high and behind to mimic late day sweet light.You will need the mother of all soft boxes to do this properly,and a lot of reflectors for fill.The highlights are what define an object as being metal,without these it will look like plastic.

[doug_mcgoldrick2]

Back in the day I assistrd a guy who shot a quite a lot of cars www.arciero.com. The mother of all softboxes is no understatement he had two soft boxes each of them was like 10x20 feet yes feet. You also need a very large space to shoot them in a curved cyc is perfect. When he went on location to shoot cars he would take with around 30 large cases, including 2 8x10 3 4x5 and about 12 lens. Doing cars really well is one of the most difficult things to do in photography. A way to do it a little cheaper is to use 4x8 foot foamcore and bounce lights into it, while surrounding the car with more foamcore and whit seamless.

 

doug

[mark_sampson]

Or you could just go to a good location on a nice day....

[doug_mcgoldrick2]

location on a nice day.

 

thats to easy

[john_luke]

Depends on the degree of perfection they want. If the museum has an attractive façade, suggest the car be placed outside, and photograph either on an overcast day or when the sun is at the horizon. Hosing down the pavement gives a nice look also. (keeps it from looking washed out and helps mask oil and tire stains.)

[brian_c._miller]

You can get rid of some of the reflections by using a polarizer. I use a polarizer to get rid of reflections in car window glass.

[per_volquartz1]

If possible bring the cars outside and photograph them in an area without direct sunlight - only using the sky (= giant soft box).

If possible use a medium - low camera angle.

In front of the car, place a line up of 8' foam core boards. On these boards paint in dark ares to be reflected into the cars, f.inst. you may want a soft gradation from the ground up: paint dark - same color as the ground at the bottom of the foam core panel and gradate the paint to pure white. You can also paint horizontal stripes on the foam core to introduce dark-light reflections.

The soft sky will give you the smooth light you need. Best light is usually arouns sun-rise or sun set, but on a semi over cast day you can work for hours.

Have dulling spray at hand to control reflections - like in small areas you want to smooth out, f. inst. use on alu wheels, or chrome wheels - if needed be.

A given: you need at least two assistant.

[john_kasaian1]

rainer, a "nice location" isn't that far fetched. The old Harrah's Automobile Museum(talk about a national treasure!) Did a series of portraits of a hundred or so of it's most interesting cars for a series of postcards and the cars were photographed on roads at scenic outdoor locations(several, I suspect, at Bill Harrah's ranch) The National Automobile Museum in Sparks, Nevada---whats left of Harrah's fabulous collection---may still be selling these postcards. It might be worth a search to see if they're on the internet. Good luck!

[john_cook1]

I had the enormous good fortune to assist the late Sid Avery during the 1960's do Toyota and Datsun ads in and around LA. Shoot outdoors just before sunrise or just after sunset. Use a compass to position the car so that the red sky area just after sunset will be reflected as a flash along the side, with dark blue light on the roof.

 

Find an area that's flat, with no horrible things to reflect in the doors like a row of telephone poles or white parking-lot lane markers.

 

Don't forget to prep the car. Double-sided carpet tape to keep the shoulder belts against the door pillar. Black masking tape all mirrors, inside and out, to prevent reflections along the doors. Fill the gas tank and pack sandbags under the hood, on the passenger floor and in the trunk. The weight will lower the car so it isn't perched up on its springs like a chicken. It will look larger and faster.

 

If you need detail in the tires, dust them with talc or spray them with Right-Guard aerosol deoderant.

 

If you work near a body of water on a cool evening, run the engine and heater to warm the car just before shooting to prevent mist building on the paint. Obviously shut it off before shooting to avoid vibration. And keep the sandbags away from the radiator fan (we lost many bags that way).

 

If you have hubcaps with writing on them, pop them off and re-attach right-side up after the car is placed.

 

We shot 4x5 with a 135mm lens for a little editorial "stretch". Camera was about chest-high off the ground.

 

And don't worry about color film CC filtration. As the sun sets, your color temperature will be all over the ballpark. Have an assistant constantly calling out light readings as the light intensity quickly changes.

 

And have fun!

 

John Cook

[stephen hazelton]

Just happened to notice this link while reading recently:

 

www.joefaraceshootscars.com

 

Not any how-to there, but interesting pictures.

[dean_lastoria]

In View Camera about 4 years ago was a great article on a guy doing planes at the Smithsonian. Lots of grumbling about no space. You should look it up. I'd bet the author of that article would have some museum specific help.

Dean

[fred_de_van]

I photographed 500-600 of the cars at the old Harrah's just before the collection was sold off. This was done for Daimler Benz and the 100th anniversary of the Automobile. The project was aborted due to the Challenger explosion, which occurred exactly 100 years after the day the first automobile made its first run. The emphasis was documenting the machines and not on tech perfect photography, which I have done for Car and Driver, Autoweek, and others. A couple of Balcars and umbrellas and reflectors were all I could muster up considering the speed and quantify dictated by the fact that the museum was about to disappear. I did an additional 100 or so at Rear View Mirror Museum in North Carolina. A few were printed in the Robb Report in 1986-1987. Look for the issue with the red 1903 Ford on the cover, and a few issues following it. A couple are also on my web site. www.freddevan.com. John Lamm also did a more "picture perfect" book on the subject. Also see my book, Photographing Cars, if you can find a copy. It was given away by Minolta and is out of print. Minolta does not have anymore. I asked about a year ago.

 

Fred De Van