On Wednesday the 27th of September, I was lucky enough to be involved in the filming of a short film for the Adelaide Motorsport Festival. The film was being made as an activation ad to build interest in the event. My involvement was to shoot behind the scenes video, help film the ad, as well as take photos and document the day. The film involved driving 3 F1 cars, a Superbike and a HDT Torana through Adelaide city streets at 10pm.
The whole film had to be kept a secret, the organisers didnt want the streets of the city lined with spectators, it wouldnt have looked natural in the film. That said, its hard to tell people to ignore the sound of a screaming v10 f1 engine.... the crowds did gather. Luckily for me i had spent all day with the cars and bike, so had an oportunity to take some more artistic shots. When you organise a photoshoot with one lamborghini, and 6 rock up... its not a bad day at all... That said, this is the shot i had wanted to take... it was made better by having a 2nd car (orange) in the shot.
It was February 2016 and the 488 GTB had just arrived to Adelaide Ferrari. I had a concept for a photo i wanted to make and luckily for me the guys at Ferrari Adelaide were keen for me to explore it. Unfortunately the to get the car to the location meant a 150km round trip, something that wasnt possible at the time. So what else to do but bring the location to the car. On a windy Monday evening i set out for the drive down to the Inman Valley, south of Adelaide. Initially the weather didnt look like it was going to play ball, but as the sun set the sky lit up with a perfect sunset. Combining a few of the landscape shots together i was able to create the perfect combination of land and sky. Just add blur... Photoshop plays a large part in my work. Having used it for 20 years now, its a vital tool i need to create the images i do. With photoshops then new Path Blur tool i was able to create the motion necessary to give the image the life it needed. The car..... As i mentioned before, the car was back at the dealership. A couple of days later with the background complete i went in to photograph the car. Unfortunately the lighting of the showroom was not ideal for the photos i need to capture. Luckily i predicted this would be the case and brought lighting gear with me to overpower the ambient light. Sprinkle some magic.....
20 HOURS!!! is what it took me to piece these images together. Its the longest time i think ive ever spent on a single photo. I hope its the longest i ever have to spend on a photo too... i took over 200 photos in the dealership trying to get lighting and angle right to make the shot look realistic, this meant i started the edit 3 times over... binning 2 attempts at this. It was all worth it in the end and it certainly taught me some new things. When Aston Martin throws you the keys to their brand new DB11 for the weekend.... it would be rude to say no.
Having the car to myself for the weekend was amazing. Such a nice car to drive, more power that it would ever need and a tuxedo for an interior... Whats not to love Ever since i could talk i loved supercars. One car that has always stuck out and been my #1 pick on the hypothetical "cars you would own if you had the money" question is the McLaren F1. With so few of them ever made, its extremely rare you will ever see one. I was lucky enough to have the owner of this example need some photography done of another car of his. The owner of #009 is an extremely hospitable and generous man. He allowed me to photograph his unicorn and with the magic of photoshop, i created these two images. Unfortunately the day i was in Melbourne to capture these images, there was a torrential downpour. As a result these photos were taken inside the owners warehouse.... but you wouldnt know.
I need you in brisbane ASAP! Were the words i got when this stunning cepheus blue Lamborghini Aventador Roadster arrived to the delight of its owner. The paint on this car is very hard to photograph, it flips and changes colour in different light. The owner wanted me to capture the car as his eyes could see it, but other cameras had failed to replicate. Bags packed i was off to Brisbane...
In person i could see the issue. It was a very difficult colour to replicate on camera. But having seen the car with my own eyes and locked that colour away in memory... i was able to replicate it true to life. Its not easy to organise a photoshoot of a Benetton F1 car driving through the streets of a major capitol city in peak hour.... so thats when photoshop comes to the rescue. This photo was created as a teaser for the Adelaide Motorsport Festival which had managed to organise several f1 cars to drive through the city. As you can see from the behind the scenes images below, the Car was photographed in the dealership, while the location was shot later that evening. Sprinkle some magic and viola!
When a couple of friends happened to have 3 of the same car in colours that represented a set of traffic lights, i came up with the idea of getting them together for this shot. The hardest question is..... which colour?
A friend picked up his new Aventador SVR, so we took it out for a drive and found a very run down carpark in the city. Light painting the car really made the green paint pop against the dark background.
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