Everything I Don't Do When I Shoot Cars — 13 Tips in 6 Minutes

people are always asking me tips on how to shoot cars better and I thought the best way to show that is to show what I don't do I believe the best art of any discipline comes out of having restrictions having limitations if you have completely open with no restrictions you might not challenge yourself to be creative so I think having these things of what not to do will help you learn good habits why do I avoid these things some of them are faux cause some of them are just stylistic things I don't really like and some of them are just too obvious and I want to do something a little less obvious so let's go through this list don't ever fill your frame edge-to-edge with the car you're shooting give it some room to breathe think of it as a scene and not a picture of a car don't ever have holes or distracting objects directly behind the car if it's a distraction if you can avoid this by repositioning the car do that look for that keep that in mind when you're positioning it if you can't reposition the car that's where you want to find an interesting crop or a way to avoid those ugly distractions and to build on that don't allow any ugly stuff in your frame that you don't want to be there unless it's telling part of the story find a different perspective or find interesting crop that will allow you to show the subject and isolate the things you don't want to show don't shoot from eye level no one will look twice at a photo taking it from the perspective that they see 24 hours a day or a lot of hours of the day this is why you can Crouch to get a lower perspective or even carry a step stool to always have a higher perspective ready when you need it don't shoot in midday Sun this seems pretty obvious but I still see it hopefully if you have some all over shoot you can avoid this don't shoot with the Sun directly behind you so you've gone out its golden hour the Sun is getting low there's one angle where the Sun will be behind you and your shadow will be on your subject or the wheel wells we completely lit up by the Sun so avoid that reposition the car reposition yourself don't do it don't over expose if you under expose you can usually save it if you over expose a lot of times you can't it's too blown out there's too weird clipping it's not great avoid that don't do anything resembling HDR high dynamic range just it's not good there there's no exceptions there's no exemptions it's bad don't shoot interiors in direct Sun it's really harsh and you'll get weird hot spots and it just doesn't work in interiors so find some shade on a static shot of a car don't use a wide-angle lens on an exterior photography is about making decisions and framing and choosing what it is you're showing and with a wide-angle lens you're just kind of showing everything if you're using a DSLR and you're shooting the wide-angle lens and you're at like F 5.6 or something you might as well be using an iPhone which is fine and I love shooting with a phone but if you're carrying around a DSLR and doing this it's you're not getting the most out of your equipment don't shoot the same angle over and over and over looking is so important looking and searching and seeing is the most important part of all of this if you take nothing else away seeing is more important than anything else you can do don't become obsessed with strobes and lighting I did this earlier in my career I felt like the work of a professional was always having this lighting element that's what separated you and I could not have been more wrong it stops you from seeing it stops you from looking yourself it stops you from looking at the sunlight and you just end up staring at your equipment and running out of time with your subject don't fixate on any gear it could be a polarizer a flash even a tripod this is an extreme example I'm not saying tripods are bad but any piece of equipment like that that you were setting up and breaking down and attaching and removing is going to slow you down and it's going to potentially stop you from looking and seeing when you're looking down looking at your settings looking into your camera bag you are missing things when you have your together you can mess with this stuff and it will add an extra 10 or 15 percent to your photos but until you get that 85 percent core competency this stuff is not benefiting you it's just kind of getting in your way so those are some of the things that I never do even if you follow every one of these rules I can't guarantee you'll get a great photo but I think it will put you ahead of like 90% of people that are shooting and making mistakes every day thank you for watching please argue with me dispute me prove me wrong go out there and prove me wrong please thumbs up subscribe all that stuff and I'll see you next time [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Capturing The Machine

Views: 245,016

Keywords: photography, cars, porsche, automotive photography, BMW, Nikon, dslr, iPhone

Id: r-t7C3uGtvI

Length: 6min 12sec (372 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 22 2020