Making Things Work – 2000 Honda S2000
Whilst I’ve been shooting a lot of manufacturer PR & commercial work as of late, I still get the biggest thrill whilst shooting editorial commissions. Because budgets are low, everything is nearly always shot in a run and gun sort of manner. It’s exciting though and ensures that no two shoots are alike. After being – literally – run out of the first location, we took to the streets to try and recover the time lost. It’s always tricky in these situations as you need to find a suitable location but also one that’s quiet enough to shoot in comfort and without background distractions. When your dealing with the streets in a capital city, these two requirements are quite often mutually exclusive. Through the sheer brilliance of social media, we were able to get suggestions from people within the locality. Within maybe half an hour of being ejected from the first location, we were back shooting on a street less than kilometre away. For me, one location is rarely enough and I’ll always try to get another in if at all possible. This time though, instead of social media, we relied upon the local knowledge of a taxi driver who advised us of not only another location, but where there was also a break in the bollards where we could get the S2000 through. You just cannot beat local knowledge. Photographed for Japanese Performance Magazine (UK)
Sunshine in October – The 2014 Volkswagen Golf SV
Ireland is a funny place to live and work. Especially, if you work outside and depend on the weather. Generally, no weather forecast is ever accurate. I generally try to take a car for as long as possible for this very reason. I can usually get the shots I need inside a day, but with unpredictable weather, I’ve often had to wait a few days before I can even get outside to shoot. Luckily my time with the new Volkswagen Golf SV, although brief, was constant sunshine. Born lucky? The Golf SV is obviously aimed at a market where practicality is at the top of the list of requirements for potential buyers. In typical Volkswagen style, the SV does everything it needs to do and does it very well. It’s comfortable, frugal and well equipped. The 1.6 TDI engine provides more kick than you would expect whilst easily returning impressive fuel economy figures. There’s also storage for days, and even as I was returning the car, I continued to find new storage areas which have been cleverly integrated into the cabin. From a photography viewpoint, I wanted to continue to develop my in-camera skills on this shoot. That is, I don’t want to depend on Photoshop or Lightroom afterwards. I want to try to get as close as possible to the final image in-camera as I can. This generally requires a lot of patience and improvisation when out and about, paying a lot more attention to small things like reflections, debris etc. Although it means more time shooting, it means less time in post production. I’ll take shooting in the sun any day over sitting in a dark room… Photographed for Volkswagen Ireland www.volkswagen.ie
