Cars

Chrome Nissan GT-R at Festivals of Speed 2013 St. Petersburg Florida Car Event Photography

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Chromed Nissan GT-R at the Festivals of Speed 2013 event in St. Petersburg Florida, highly stylized & editedAt the Festivals of Speed 2013 car event in St. Petersburg, Florida, there was no shortage of cars getting a lot of attention.  However, a chrome Nissan GT-R was getting more than most.  Anytime you chrome out a car, it is going to be eye catching.  Whether such a finish to a car is to your taste or not, you cannot help but stare at it.  Since this GT-R was surrounded by people, I had to do a lot of editing in Photoshop and other apps to get a final result I liked.  Below I show the process.

I chose to completely replace the sky because that was much, much easier to do than to edit out the people and trees in the existing background.  This way I only had to select the car and foreground and then place that on a new layer and slip in behind it a blue sky I had in my archives.  The choice to go infrared was because of how black it made the sky, and in contrast how shiny the car looked in comparison.  Editing out the reflections in the car was just a tedious process that needed to be done to complete the look.

Festivals of Speed Luxury Lifestyle Jet Port Reception 2013

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McLaren MP4-12C Spider at the Tampa Jet Center - event photography - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 200 9-exposure HDR imageI received a media pass to the Festivals of Speed Luxury Lifestyle Jet Port Reception 2013 to go in and make all the photographs of supercars I wanted.  This was my second time shooting at the Tampa International Jet Center, which is an outstanding location for Tampa car photography, although since it is an event for people, most cars were rather surrounded and close to each other.  Therefore, I looked for the best partial angles most of the time in composing my car shots.  One benefit of the formal event going on was that there were numerous colorful lights flashing across the space creating vivid backgrounds.  It seems everyone is getting a McLaren MP4-12C Spider nowadays as the white one above was the second one I saw in as many weeks.

Aston Martin DBS painted like a kaleidoscope at the Tampa International Jet Center - Tampa event photography - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 200 9-exposure HDRAn Aston Martin DBS is normally an understated supercar that looks both fierce and classy at the same time.  I would not want to try to describe how this kaleidoscope painted DBS looks, so that's why there is a photo of it for you to form your own thoughts.  

Fisker Karma parked beside a private jet at Festivals of Speed Luxury Lifestyle event 2013 - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 200 9-exposure HDRThe supercars at this event were parked along a variety of luxury lifestyle items, even private jets.  The photo above suggests one could step out of their private jet (huge environmental impact) into their Fisker Karma electric vehicle and perhaps offset using so much jet fuel to transport so few people.  

Classic motorcycles at dusk - Tampa International Jet Center - event photography - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 200 13 sec single exposureA line of classic motorcycles fanned out onto the tarmac at the Tampa International Jet Center.  That is not the sunset in the background, just a large flood light, but I chose to overexpose the shot to look like it was.

Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder with engine cove open at Festivals of Speed Luxury Lifestyle 2013 event - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 200 9-exposure HDRI spent an hour looking for shots at this event, trying to find suitable backgrounds and to use the existing flood and strobe lights to compliment the mostly HDR techniques I was using to make images that evening.

St. Petersburg Grand Prix Gala 2013 featuring Ferrari Lotus & Lexus LFA

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This pink Lotus Elise attracted a crowd at the 2013 St. Petersburg Grand Prix Gala - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 200 2.5 sec tripod mounted with cable releaseThe Friday evening before the actual 2013 St. Petersburg Grand Prix race was the Grand Prix Gala featuring numerous supercars and other things, but for me of course, all my attention was on the cars.  The Lotus Elise above was painted a shockingly bright pink.  Though this car looks rather exotic, it is relatively not that expensive and can be had for around $55,000.  

Ford GT in the foreground at St. Petersburg Grand Prix Gala 2013 - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 200 9-exposure HDRWelcoming you to the Grand Prix Gala was a Ford GT (in foreground doors open) followed by a line of Ferraris, Porsches and a Maserati.  There was a sudden rain shower as I arrived limiting the shots I could get outside, but it did add a nice sheen to the look of the above shot overall.

Ferrari 458 Spider in yellow at St. Petersburg Grand Prix Gala 2013 - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 200 7-exposure HDRThis was my first time to see a Ferrari 458 Spider in person.  I had seen the 458 Italia many times before, so I was glad someone brought this Spider to show what an open top adds to what most consider the best current supercar in existence.   

Lexus LFA #406 at the St. Petersburg Florida Grand Prix Gala 2013 - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 200 7-exposure HDRFeatured prominently also was this, famous to me, Lexus LFA #406.  I have now seen it on at least four different occasions.  The comments I hear most as people walk by it is their surprise that the car is a Lexus.  I guess not everyone is subscribed to the Lexus Enthusiast then!  

Lexus LFA #406 in St. Petersburg Florida Grand Prix Gala

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Lexus LFA #406 in St. Petersburg Florida - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 200 7-exposure HDR - see editing workflow for this shot belowI first saw this white Lexus LFA #406 at the Cars & Couture Tampa event last year, but it was roped off making it impossible to get any kind of usuable shot at that event.  Lucky for me it was shown again at the 2013 St. Petersburg Grand Prix Gala this time with no ropes.  Still, it was in the middle of a building lobby surrounded by people so to get usable shots I liked I had to be pretty creative with editing.  

Lexus LFA #406 St. Petersburg Florida car photography with added motion blur HDR image - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 200 7-exposure HDRUsually I have an idea of where I want to end up before I start editing a shot, or even before I push the shutter out in the field making the photograph in the first place.  This time I did not anticipate liking B&W better, nor adding digital blur (both Guassian and motion) to the shots.

Lexus LFA #406 at the St. Petersburg Florida Grand Prix Gala 2013 - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 200 7-exposure HDREvery shot was made from a 7-exposure HDR image and required a lot of color correction.  Shooting in RAW and auto white balance normally produces a very color accurate shot once in Aperture 3.  Not so this time as even after Aperture did its thinking on processing the RAW image it remained very yellow.  I heard people with point and shoot cameras complaining how yellow their shots were coming out too.  Standing in the space I did not notice that much warm lighting so I was surprised the RAW shot needed as much work as it did.  Below I show in four abbreviated steps my digital editing workflow starting with a single RAW file and ending with the final look I chose for the shot.  In all this initial workflow took about 45-minutes to finalize.  It was then faster to apply it to the other two images in this post since I knew what I wanted. 

St. Petersburg Grand Prix 2013 Classic Racers

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Porsche 911 Series 993 racing on the track at the St. Petersburg Grand Prix 2013 - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/5.6 ISO 200 1/1250thI entered the 2013 St. Petersburg Grand Prix raceway area around noon not know what type of cars I may see on the track at that time.  To my delight the classic racers were out and I got to see my favorite car, the Porsche 911 in several forms roaring around the course.  It took me awhile to find a suitable spot to photograph the cars because the double fence around most of the course just could not be shot through with any success.  

A Mustang takes the corner ahead of a Jaguar at the St. Petersburg Grand Prix 2013 - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/5.6 ISO 200 1/1250th

I ended up using a spot where a TV camera guy was.  There was a hole cut out of the fence that his huge camera was pointing through so I then only had one fence to shoot through and I could put my lens right up against essentially making it invisible to my camera's sensor.  This spot is where most of these shots are from.

Another classic Porsche 911 with huge rear wing taking a turn at the 2013 St. Petersburg Grand Prix - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/5.6 ISO 200 1/1000thI had some idea it would be very loud because as I sit here at home now with the windows open some 4 miles away I can hear the faint sound of engines even.  I actually liked the intense sound and did not use the promotional air plugs handed to me by some social media guy.  I was there less than an hour, so perhaps longer exposure to the engine sounds would have been headache inducing, but for me it was a rush to shoot and feel the subject so viscerally.  

Going down a long straightaway at the St. Petersburg Grand Prix 2013 - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/4 ISO 200 1/1000thI always wonder what the people do who live in the condos right on the race course.  Do they eventually block it out, love it, or just spend the weekend out of town?

Custom Classic Van HDR at Madeira Beach Car Show St. Petersburg Florida 2013

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Classic Custom Van Photography at Madeira Beach Car Show 2013 - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 9-exposure HDR digital background

I went to the Maderia Beach Classic Car Show this past Sunday on a cold and blustery afternoon.  Apparently custom car owners do not much like that type of weather as there were only 8 cars there total!  Of those only one really caught my eye, a custom van that with the hood open, looked like the roaring mouth of a dragon or vulture or similar creature.  I wanted to make a shot to accentuate that feature of the car.  As is often the case at car shows, the background was not great and there was only a tight space to shoot in.  So even as I was making the shot that cold afternoon I was already thinking I about how I wanted to edit the shot and I knew I would just remove the background.

The graphic below shows what a single exposure would have looked like, a 9-exposure HDR, then the final image with all edits and digital background added.

McLaren MP4-12C stylized HDR profile view Tampa Car Photography

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McLaren MP4-12C photographed in Tampa Florida on digital background - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 200 9-exposure HDR

Back in October I received a media pass to the Cars & Couture event in Tampa where I had the opportunity to photograph the event as a whole, and some supercars in particular like the above McLaren MP4-12C.  As is usually the case at car shows, all of them were parked pretty close to each other and there were people and other objects around in the background.  To focus just on the car I try to compose a view minimizing the background, and in this case, just remove the background altogether.  

The actual background of the McLaren MP4-12C shot from Cars & Couture event in TampaCoincidentally, I think I saw this McLaren parked in a neighbor's driveway just this past weekend!