Calendar Submissions: One Man's Observations

[Total BS]

Regarding the grass...which brings us back to the age old question.  Why do we park in the driveway and drive on the parkway.

[DAYTONA]

...I'll give my thoughts (hoping not to pi$$ off too many) 

...for nearly 15 years I helped organize photo shoots for different magazines and freelance photographers which is how I got so many of my cars in magazines and books thru the years....I watched them all intently and learned what I could...

...several simple rules the magazines/photographers insisted on

* NEVER, NEVER, NEVER shoot a car on grass.....they were made to run on the streets...I had a photographer here from England once and he said quite distinctly, "grass is for taking a picture of your pet, not your automobile...."

* ALWAYS have the sun to your back and the shadows on the side of the car you DON'T see...always get better results on overcast days than in the bright sun

* 45 degree angle shots with the front tire turned to show the wheel are the favorites of publishers.....shows alot of the car and you can get a bigger/closer shot of the car with an angle than a straight side shot...it also looks like an 'action' shot rather than just parked...

* background...we shot many of the cars at a local airport so there was nothing but pavement, sky and the CAR...it was a car magazine....they didn't want poles/trees/mailboxes etc etc sticking out of the fender/roof of the car being photographed...the Brittish photographer was more bent towards artistic shots and was far more creative than the guys shooting 30 cars per day...we experimented with colors and backgrounds far more than with the other magazines...I like to use backgrounds similar to the one in the pix I have entered in the contest....the corn stops the eye from roaming all over the photo looking at everything EXCEPT the car...contrasting color helps too

* magazines rarely print black cars (waste of their color pages).....

* contrasting colors enhance your photo....light color cars need darker backdrops...dark cars need lighter backdrops...still hard to beat an airport....don't shoot green/yellow cars with any or much foilage(not enough color contrast)....don't shoot black cars with green in the picture at all....green and black suck when together in a photo

* avoid distractions in your photo....distant buildings/poles/wires/lines on the pavement/trash....we even picked the gravels out of the treads everytime the car tires were rotated.....look the picture over closely before you snap the shot....

many many more things to think about but I figured I have bored everyone sh!tless by now anyway....


...so it's easy to get good results.......just take your time and look things over before you press the button

pix 1....yelo car....I like to play with backgrounds sometimes
pix 2...red car......it's difficult to go wrong with a clean simple background....I get many of my favorite shots on country roads....

[DAYTONA]

ps....(like you wanna hear more of my crap in another post anyway)....there are several outstanding shots in the contest....lighting, background color etc etc are all there....and honestly, Barrys picture (like Barry or not) is an outstanding pix.....content,color, interest.....it is one of the pix I will vote for but I won't tell anyone the rest 

Barry, don't forget to send the money next day air

[cudabuyer]

I loved the cars and pics, but I believe that it is the background and set-up as much as the car itself & that's how I voted

Congrats to all who submitted

[torredcuda]

I can`t see anything wrong with cars on grass,obviuosly we don`t normally drive on the grass but it makes a decent photo.I also don`t know of many cars that can fly so why shoot at an airport?   

[Todd Smith]

  I wish mine could roll to the grass!! 

[crcarch]

...I'll give my thoughts (hoping not to pi$$ off too many)  ...............

All good advice.  Hopefully next year I'll be able to roll my car further than the driveway! When I'm done with the rebuild, I think the ultimate shot would be in front of an old fashioned movie theatre at night, like the Fox Theatre in Atlanta. The lights would make it look awesome!  Of course, I have no clue how I'd get that shot. Might have to get Redline to help me with that one.

[DAYTONA]

I wish mine could roll to the grass!! 

 

[DAYTONA]

All good advice.  Hopefully next year I'll be able to roll my car further than the driveway! When I'm done with the rebuild, I think the ultimate shot would be in front of an old fashioned movie theatre at night, like the Fox Theatre in Atlanta. The lights would make it look awesome!  Of course, I have no clue how I'd get that shot. Might have to get Redline to help me with that one.

when shooting with a big building, try to get the car away from the building...park  across the street etc etc.....that way the building is smaller and your car is bigger....

one more tip....don't let people stand in front of the car you are shooting....that too can be distracting 

[Cannibal94]

I like to drive on the grass, because that is the only way I can spin my tire.   

[70challengerrt]

There is a lot of good tips here. After looking at other calender entrys I seen a lot of thing I could have done better in my pics. I got my camera out and taking practice pics for next year. Who am I kidding I will wait until the last minute like this year. LOL

[Alaskan_TA]

Barry, don't forget to send the money next day air

 

Several good tips here so far. Lighting is crucial, night or day use the available light to your advantage. One tip I do not remember seeing in this thread is the use of a flash even on a bright day. The flash can "fill" in areas that would otherwise leave shadows which can be distracting as well. 

Barry

[CrazyPete]

im newer to the site and i totally missed this post tell me what u think this was a pic from a calender i did in 06 this is a scaled down pic

[DAYTONA]

im newer to the site and i totally missed this post tell me what u think this was a pic from a calender i did in 06 this is a scaled down pic

just a couple of observations(opinions) ....


...the car should have been parked a few feet closer to the camera to get rid of the painted line

...the cars position was all wrong from the outset, the shadow obscures the front of the car, ALWAYS put the shadow on the back of the car....many locations I use for pictures are for morning shoots only, other locations for afternoons because of the position of the sun....that is why an overcast day sometimes is the better choice....shadows are less harsh...

...color of bricks and car are complimentary and pleasing to the eye

...I would have moved the car closer to the camera,  a little more angle, and knelt down or layed down to take the shot.....result, bigger car, less pavement and the building isn't so prominent...ps....beautiful T/A

[CrazyPete]

thx for the feed back that was 1 of the 30+ pics i took at that location with a sony dig camera that pic is less than 1 mb where as all the others we took was 5mb.  And your comment on the bright/yellow cars in a grass fiels w/tree is so true at first i love this pic but the lighting and the lack of color contrast makes the car look green

thank you once again and im done picking your brain for now.