How to photograph a lover, when it happens to be a CAR! (07.11.2011)

A car may become a man’s cult object or even lover. It is not considered as piece of junk, which helps us to get quickly from one place to another. It is something that puts a man’s heart beat when he slips his hand over a nice rubber bumper or smells the hot motor. There are even more reasons to photographing cars. Some just adore pictures of beautiful cars, others take photos of their cars to show off with their beauty on Facebook, some just look for an opportunity to get rid of their car and by adding an illustrating photo to a sales add, they hope to „create hunger“ in the new owner.

Here, I am giving ten pointers on how to get better results when taking photos of cars.

1. Wash your car! It seems logical but still you can find photos of cars in the sales ads where dirt, dust and dead bugs all over the car front do not give a good impression of the car or the owner of it.
2. Choose a place where you are going to do the photo shoot. It would be better if you find a place where there are no disturbing details. In the parking lot, in the middle of tens of other cars, it is definitely not the right place. Places where there are too many additional details are also not good for the shoot – they catch too much attention. Make sure that the details on the background do not become part of the car. This can happen when you have a house on the background and as a result you have a rain pipe growing out of your car’s hood. Open and plain scenery is good enough. A road crook is also a suitable background for the car. To get a nice picture of a car you need to consider that the background should agree with the general nature of the object – a limo should have a luxury house on the background and a tractor should be photographed on the field, not the other way around.              
3. Remember that the light situation defines the result of the photo. It is not good to take photos of any objects in a contrast falling sunlight. The big difference between the shadows and light loses the soft shimmer transition and colours. The more so if you are dealing with shiny windows and a polished car colour. You get the best results by shooting under a cloudy sky when the light reflects to the surface of the car from different angles and the source of lighting is not seen itself. But you still need to observe that that the reflections are in the right places. With places that are left in the shadow, it is good to use a light reflector. Making the car surfaces shiny is often the most difficult assignment for the photographer. It is important to observe that there are no unwanted reflections of surroundings or the mirror image of the photographer on the shiny surfaces of the car (it is especially important to observe chromium-plated body details and windows).
4. Which camera to use? Of course you can take photos of cars using a compact camera. But there are just a lot more options when using a reflex camera, especially when dealing with such a difficult shooting object as a car. Use different lens. Using a wide angle lens to photograph near objects means a danger of perspective distortion, i. e. the car parts closer to the lens seem a lot bigger than the details farther away. It might look interesting and artistic but certainly not realistic. 50 mm normal lens should give you the most realistic image. Using a telephoto lens you need to remember that there should be enough space for the shooting. The shooting distance can be around ten meters and more. But at the same time the telephoto lens with a long-distance focus gives a nicely non sharp background. Regulating the camera’s opening through the diaphragm, one should observe that the depth-of-field is not too small on the part of the object that is being photographed.
5. Photographer’s little helper, flash, is not always the best solution when taking photos of a car, especially when using the flash on the camera. For sure, the light of the flash reflects right back from the coloured surface or windows of the car into the lens of the camera and ruins the result. When using a compact camera, it is better to say no to the use of flash. Flashes that can be used farther away from the camera by using a remote control can be used in the right angle or screen surfaces can be used to soften or lead the light of the flash. A different story is doing a light painting where in a dark environment, it is possible to create very interesting and attractive results by using different sources of light.
6. When getting rid of the reflections, a polarization filter provides great help. The help of the polarization filter is best seen on the car windows – shooting from the right angle, it is possible to lose the entire reflections from the windows. The reflections also disappear from the coloured surfaces of the car. Since the car body is not flat, it is not possible to lose the reflections from everywhere. As a solution, the camera should be put on the tripod and several shots should be taken and on each shot, the reflections are cleared away from different surfaces. Later, in the digital photo processing, the shots are added together and as a result, a reflection-free image is born.                                                                                                                    
7.  The angle and direction of the shoot are very important when photographing cars. Most of the time, people photograph from the height of their eyes. But to get the suitable shooting angle, it is wise to photograph from lower and take photos from the height of car’s front lights or even from the ground. When photographing bigger vehicles (trucks, busses etc.) it is on the opposite, better to choose the higher shooting angle. Taking photos from the side of a car is quite boring. In a sales add, as a small image, it is thinkable, since it gives a nice overview but it is not very attractive. Photographing a car from a 45 degree angle gives us a more spatial view. When it is possible to take a series of pictures to characterise the car, then one should not only consider different angles and directions but it is important to remember that different car details (front or back lights, grille bars, wheels etc.) pass on a very detailed and interesting story. Skilled detail photographing can give a lot of important information about the particular car or help to get very attractive and visually enjoyable photos.                                                                              '
8.  Photographing a moving car is a challenge. Here, a reflex camera user also has many advantages. Since the camera enables the use of different shutter speeds, using a suitably long shutter speed, it is possible to get a certain moving mood to the picture by having the background a little blurry. It is possible to shoot on the side of the driving lane by moving along with the driving car and dragging the lens. The other option is to photograph from the other car that is moving practically on the same speed. The advantage of the latter is that in the short period of time it is possible to take different shots by using different shutter speeds. In the traffic, it is important to pay attention to the traffic code and safety instructions.                                                       
9. The final result depends of the composition. A technically perfect shoot does not mean a perfect picture. When taking a photo of a car, try to compose it so that it would fill most of the frame and there would be no other objects in the frame that would become relevant and compete with the main object because of their size, colour, sharpness, position or something else.  Do not photograph the object too much into the frame. Remember that in the photo post-processing it is always possible to cut the empty places out. But it is not possible to add something later. Consider the rule of thirds. On the car’s moving direction there should be a little space. That also goes for the car that is not moving. When you photograph details, pay attention to how the frame cuts the object
10. Post-processing has a huge role in photography these days. Still, it is important to remember that the proper result means first and foremost, a well prepared shooting situation and a precise camera work. A computer is not the place to get rid of the dead bugs on the front lights. On a sales photo, maybe it is not best to do the rust removal digitally. To just make a nice photo of a car, everything is allowed!

Aivar Pihelgas
Nikon School teacher

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