This is an image I like to call the Mini Incident. I always wanted to do a car shot! I love the work of British photographer Douglas Fisher and his technical approach to car photography. I suggest you check out his site, especially the Behind the scenes section where you can see the layer by layer construction of some of his most compelling work. Very instructive.

Not having a 20ft long softbox at hand and access to amazing cars, I figured I could try to cheat reality and test my car shooting abilities! I had shot the background image about a year ago during the construction of a huge building downtown and I knew I could do something interesting with it down the line. I then called a friend of mine of collects car replicas so I could have a look at them. Out of the lot, he had an old school red Mini that just asked to be shot!

I brought it home, unscrewed it from its base and started testing. The challenge was trying to shoot it from underneath in mid-air to match the point of view and lighting of the background image. I picked up some brochette sticks and I had my solution. I then got a model to scream her lungs out at the studio so I could later integrate her to the car shot.

The rest of the shot was post-processing. Balancing luminosity, contrast, retouching obvious plastic features of the car. The car isn’t perfect, but that’s fine! I’ve accomplished what I set out to do in the first place! Getting a car shot, under absolutely no budget! Now, if I could convince someone to get the budget for a real car shot…