Car Photography

This photograph of a VW Caravelle is one from 2009 that I am most proud of.  It was shot for GM Coachwork, an engineering company in south Devon who have a great business adapting cars for the disabled. 

Instead of in a purpose-built car photography studio, this was shot actually in the workshop on site, with all its paraphernalia around us.  I explained to Dave Vooght from GM that a massive reflector would need to be constructed and suspended above the car, but with the ability to raise lower and tilt, which his team constructed out of 6 sheets of 4'x8' insulating polystyrene.  Added to that, lighting stands holding rolls of white  and black background paper controlled the reflections and light was bounced onto the car from several different directions.  The important thing about car photography is that no light is allowed to strike the bodywork directly.  The black background paper introduces the shadowing and gives depth to the image.  All of this gave a really clean image, which could be cut out and dropped onto a graduated background in Photoshop, giving an image which emulates the one from the VW Caravelle brochure - which was the look that Dave was seeking.  Smiles all round!