Cars

Cars & Couture 2012 Tampa International Jet Center

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Ferrari 458 Italia & Ferrari FF at Cars & Couture 2012 event in Tampa - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 200 9-exposure HDR tripod mounted with cable release

  • If I took your photograph at this event, CONTACT ME for your portrait!

I was given a media pass to the Cars & Couture 2012 event at the Tampa International Jet Center that was held to benefit the charity Autism Speaks.  Being an avid supercar fan, I was very excited to have the opportunity to photograph some of my favorite cars in a cool setting.  In the above photo, you can see my absolute current favorite car, the Ferrari 458 Italia on the left.  This was also my first chance to get to see the new Ferrari FF (on the right) in person.  I thought the FF looked smaller than I thought it would being a 4-seater with ample cargo space.  

An Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione looks out over the Tampa International Jet Center airfield - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 200 9-exposure HDR tripod mounted with cable release

I arrived at 6pm as the sun was getting low in the sky allowing me to catch some of the sunset mixed with the hangar location of the event as seen in the above shot of a very rare Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione.  I like the design of this Alpha quite a lot.  It was given the best spot, perhaps because it arrived late!

Cars & Couture 2012 in Tampa featured private jets too! - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 7-exposure HDR tripod mounted with cable releaseI must say that an airplane hangar makes a great venue for showcasing cars and allowing guests to have both an indoor and outdoor experience, especially when there is a big view of the Florida sky at dusk as a backdrop.  It was a little hot inside the hangar though as even this late into October Florida refuses to acknowledge that it is in fact autumn.

NASCAR was even represented at Cars & Couture 2012 in Tampa! - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 200 9-exposure HDR tripod mounted with cable releaseI had a great time at this event and am very thankful I was given a press pass.  My supercar itch, is for the moment, somewhat scratched!

Corvette great subject bad background digital photography editing tip

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Final fully edited custom silver Corvette - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 5-exposure HDR - black gradient background added digitallyWhat if you have a great subject to photograph, but a terrible background?  I tell my DSLR photography students that assuming you have a good subject, then what makes or breaks a shot, what sets it apart is the light (lighting) and the background.  For this shot the subject is a really cool custom Corvette.  However, the background was horrible and I could not use depth of field techniques to just turn the background into beautiful bokeh because the subject was too close to the background, at least if I wanted to photograph the entire car, which I did.  So, to make the shot usable I opend up my digital photographing editing toolkit.

So what did I do first after processing the HDR image and do a few little minor edits?  I loaded the photo in Photoshop (I still use CS5) and chose the Quick Select (W is the keyboard shortcut) tool.  The background looks very busy and it might seem like selecting the Corvette would be difficult, but there are several factors why it was not too tedious.  One is the Corvette is a fairly distinct, blocky object, no lone thin parts or openings.  Second, none of the surrounding colors are similar to the Corvette itself.  The hood did take a little fine tuning to get selected, but other than that it was not too bad.  Notice I selected the naturally existing shadow under the car too.  Once finished I clicked on the Refine Edge option up in the Quick Select menu bar.

In the Refine Edge window you can clean up the extra bit of edging that you do not want as well as export just the selected subject to a new layer, which is what I always do.  Once that is done, I add a new layer to use as a background that I can paint any color.  I usually choose white first to see how it looks and also to make sure I really cleaned up all the edges.  I liked the white background, so I saved a JPG from the PSD project.

Next I just painted over the white background with the Brush Tool at 100% opacity black.  Right away I liked the black background better as I thought it made the silver Corvette pop out.  The black background caused the shadow to become invisible and kind of made the shot look a little two dimensional, so the final touch was adding a 40% opacity vertical gradient only from the mid-height point of the image.  

This process can of course be used for any subject with a variety of digital or real backgrounds.  So the next time you see a really cool subject, but are disappointed by the background, be sure to still make the shot in the field knowing you can using a few Photoshop techniques to produce a final image you will be happy with.

19th Annual Suncoast Corvette Show at The Pier St. Petersburg Florida car photographer 2012

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Custom Corvette with scissor doors at 19th Annual Suncoast Corvette Show in St. Petersburg - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 9-exposure HDR tripod mounted with cable releaseAt high noon I ventured out to downtown St. Petersburg, Florida to the 19th Annual Suncoast Corvette Show at The Pier.  The Florida sun was beating down mercilessly paying no regard that today was September 1st.  If I am honest, Corvettes are not my favorite cars, except for the 1959 vintage, but it was still an opportunity to be around sports cars and further motivation to own a proper sports car of my own in the future.  The very customized Corvette seen above with scissor doors among other modifications was tricky to frame how I wanted as is usually the case when shooting at a car show where any number of obstacles are in the way and in the background.  Finally by tilting my camera was I able to get the doors fully in the shot.  I removed a few things digitally front the background leaving only a clean blue sky to frame this Corvette.

Lots of color at the 19th Annual Corvette Show at The Pier 2012 in St. Petersburg FloridaThough there was a significant lack of shade, I was suprised by how well The Pier location was for displaying a large number of cars.  The square ring surrounding The Pier allowed for plenty of space to line up Corvette after Corvette, most with their hoods up proudly showing off their engines.

The most powerful Corvette ever made, the ZR1 - Nikon D300 Nikkor 105mm VR micro @ f/8 ISO 200 5-exposure HDR whit background added digitallyWhen shooting at a car show my approach is usually to first look for wide shots using my 17-50mm lens, then switch to my trusty Nikkor 105mm VR micro lens (how Nikon naming refers to macro, not a typo) for detail shots like the one above just showing a Corvette ZR1 front fender and wheel.  Since the cars at these events are always parked so closely together, opting for detail shots intstead of whole car images I believe is a good strategy for increasing your chances of getting usable shots, but that I mean shots that actually look like they are of the car, not of a car at a car show.

1974 Jaguar E-Type Series III V-12 Convertible Tampa Car Photography

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1974 Jaguar E-Type Series V-12 Convertible photographed for RM Auction in Tampa - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/8 ISO 200 1/200th tripod mounted with cable releaseIn June I was hired by RM Auctions to photograph a 1974 Jaguar E-type Series III V-12 Convertible.  I was not allowed to publish any of the photographs I made of the car until it went to auction.  I was happy to see that it sold for $82,500!

The interior of a 1974 Jaguar E-Type Series III V-12 Convertible in Tampa Florida - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/5.6 ISO 200 1/40th Strobist: SB-800 in brolly above car & SB-600 in car facing dashboard

I was given a shotlist by RM Auctions of exactly the exterior angles that wanted photographs of.  However, with the interior I had a little more freedom for choosing details to highlight along with the required engine and ID plate shots.  Thankfully the car was in an air conditioned room to start with as I had to photograph the Jaguar around 1pm in the afternoon on a hot Florida Saturday afternoon.  

The V-12 engine of a 1974 Jaguar E-Type Series III Convertible in Tampa Florida - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/5.6 ISO 200 1/60th Strobist: SB-800 in brolly above frame left & SB-600 under the right wheel housePhotographing an engine with lighting just from above, no matter how powerful, was not enough to bring out all of its details.  So I placed one speedlight right on the floor under the engine (beside the tire).  Again, it was nice to be in a climate controlled room as I worked out the best lighting setup.

Profile view of 1974 Jaguar E-Type Series III Convertible in Tampa Florida - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/5.6 ISO 200 1/160thMoving the car outside for the exterior shots of course very quickly became hot work, especially since the car was not in running condition and needed to be pushed.  Plus, there was a very finite amount of space to use so I could not simply just walk around the car in a 360 getting the angles RM Auctions requested.  For each shot the car had to be pushed around again, and the top taken up and then down.  

Steering wheel of 1974 Jaguar E-Type Series III V-12 Convertible Tampa Florida - Nikon D300 Nikkor 105mm VR micro @ f/6.3 ISO 200 1/60th Strobist: SB-800 in brolly above right & SB-600 in passenger footwellI used three different lenses to photograph the Jaguar.  For this detail shot of the steering wheel, I put on my Nikkor AF-S 105mm VR micro f/2.8G lens to go for maximum detail and very shallow depth of field.  This was one of the shots where I had a choice on which interior features to highlight.

Trunk emblem of Jaguar E-Type V12 - Nikon D300 Nikkor 105mm VR micro @ f/6.3 ISO 200 1/60th Strobist: SB-800 in brolly to frame rightIt was exciting to work for a high profile client like RM Auctions, whom I have seen featured on car shows I watch regularly like Chasing Classic Cars.  There is not much I like to photograph more than a great car.  I hope they have more cars in the Tampa Bay area for me to photograph for their next auction.

Ford GT supercar in black Tampa Car Photography

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Making the most of an opportunity to photograph a rare Ford GT in Tampa, FloridaWhile on location in Tampa for RM Auctions to photograph a 1974 Jaguar E Type (photos cannot be published until July), at the end of that shoot I had an opportunity to take a few shots of a Ford GT also on site.  This supercar could not be moved and was just parked along side a building with about a third of the car in shade, the other two-thirds in direct afternoon Florida sunlight.  I knew to get any kind of detail and exposure worth having I would need to make it an HDR shot, and I went all the way to the max of 9 exposures that my Nikon D300 does automatically in bracketing mode.  I was for the most part pleased with the results of the HDR process (which does nothing for the reflections in the paint, unfortunately), but still did not like the foreground nor the background.  To get the foreground like the above I Quick Selected it in Photoshop CS5 and burned and underexposed it, also cloning out a few stray pieces of debris.  I repeated that process for the background and just painted it completely white.

In the above sequence you can see the difference HDR makes and then how cleaning up the foreground and eliminating the background puts the focus on the car itself.  Now about the reflections in the car, there is nothing I can do about those.  Small reflections can be cleaned up, but entire body panels cannot.  Still, I am happy with the results and glad to have the chance to photograph a Ford GT, a car made famous recently by Jeremy Clarkson of Top Gear who purchased one himself.

Blue Ferrari California in St. Petersburg Florida white background edit

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Blue Ferrari California in St. Petersburg Florida - Nikon D300 Nikkor 50mm lens @ f/2.8 ISO 200 1/125th white background added digitallyDowntown St. Petersburg can be surprisingly good for spotting super cars and other exotics.  For example last night parked right on Beach Drive NE was this blue Ferrari California.  I was actually teaching a DSLR Photography Lesson at the time and used the car as a practice subject.  Even if I was on my own and had all the photographer gear with me I would want, it would have been difficult to produce a shot any better than this due to the neighboring cars and the busy background.  

So in making this quick car photograph I concentrated on the best detail clearly visible, in this case the front wheel and huge ceramic brake rotor and bright yellow brake calliper.  There was still the problem of the street it was parked on being in the foreground (see below image).

The original photograph straight from RAW conversion to JPG in Aperture 3 of the Ferrari CaliforniaAfter doing my usual editing workflow first in Aperture 3, then Color Efex Pro 3, I sent the photograph into Photoshop CS5 and did some selective edits (sharpening, contrast) before simply removing the car and wheel from the image and putting only that on a new layer.  Then I added yet another new layer under the car layer, painted it white, and boom, produced the best image I could of a car in a very non-ideal location.

Porsche 911 GT2 RS white with black rims St. Petersburg Florida

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Porsche 911 GT2 RS in white with black rims - Vinoy Park - St. Petersburg, Florida - Nikon D300 Nikkor AF-S 105mm VR micro @ f/4 ISO 200 1/2000th - black & white processing in Silver Efex Pro, white background digitally inserted in PhotoshopSitting at my desk now, before me on the wall is a large poster of the new 991 generation Porsche 911 Carerra.  I found the poster in with an edition of the Wall Street Journal.  To my left on the wall is a custom photo of a Cayman S made by Porsche specifically for me from a Facebook promotion they had last year.  In the photograph above, is the current apex Porsche, the Porsche 911 GT2 RS.  I made this photograph in Vinoy Park where the Porsche was one of several others waiting to be part of a car show the next day.  

The problem with photographing cars at car shows is that it is very hard to get a clean shot.  Choosing the angle I did insured no other cars appeared in the shot.  The background bokeh of trees and condos was busy.  In my post processing of the image in Photoshop, the final step I took was removing the GT2 RS itself from the frame and placing it upon an empty background.  I then created a new layer and inserted it behind the Porsche layer.  I painted this layer white thus removing the background distraction resulting in a clean image.

The original color photograph on left; The black & white digital white background image on the rightIn the above comparison you can see how removing the background (also in the windows too) puts the focus on the GT2 RS.  Also notice the optical illusion created by using a white background.  Doesn't the color image make the Porsche look much bigger in the frame?  However, they are the exact same size.