Recent PR Work – 2015 Kia Sorento
Client: KIA Ireland Intent: PR & Social Media. Date: March 2015. Location: Wicklow, Ireland. Further Information: www.kia.ie
Rain, Cobbles & The New Škoda Fabia
You have thought that by living in Ireland all my life, at some stage I would have gotten used to the rain. As it turns out I haven’t and I probably never will. However, I’ve always been of the opinion that if it’s going to rain on a shoot day, then it has to rain. I guess I should have been careful what I wished for… When I picked up the new Fabia from the amazing crew at Automotive Team, the skies were threatening but I thought we might just get away with it. As it turned out, I was quite wrong. Exceptionally strong winds brought rain shortly after collection and in turn, completely changed the dynamic of the shoot. Luckily though, I think it actually worked in my favour. When the weather can’t make its mind up and you get showers followed by brief sunshine followed by more showers, you end up with inconsistency in your backgrounds and more often than not, dirty and grungy looking roads with random dry spots. But when the rain comes and decides to stay, it brings out a whole new colour palette from the city’s streets. You get reflections and shine that you don’t get on a dry day. You have consistent soft lighting throughout the day and the benefit of water droplets beading off the paint work. The only issue on this shoot was the strong wind, which kept rocking the tripod and made the task of getting sharp exposures quite difficult, particular when trying to drag the shutter out just a little longer to blur those passers-by. The car itself? Well, pretty much like the rest of the VAG cars, you know it’s going to be a good one before you even drive it. I really liked it. This particular car featured a 1.2 […]
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
S For Sublime – The 2014 Audi S3 Saloon
For years, it always pained me to read Irish road tests of cars on UK or non-Irish number plates. Often, the cars presented would be of different specification or even left hand drive. It’s a small thing but something that a plethora of manufacturers here are coming around to. One of those is Audi Ireland. Along with investing €80 million into its Irish dealer network, by introducing another Irish registered press car into its fleet for exclusive use by Irish press, it’s just a small token that shows how they are invested in this country and that they care about their customer base here. Ireland might only make up a minute percentage of Audi’s worldwide sales but they still treat the market with huge respect. Kudos to them and the other manufacturers too. Some weeks ago, Audi booked me to shoot their new S3 saloon once it arrived onto their press fleet. Little sleep was had in the weeks subsequent to this booking. 300hp from a two litre TFSI motor and the famous quattro four wheel drive with an S tronic dual-clutch gearbox. What more could you ask for? Well, besides an RS6 that is… I shot the car over the course of a weekend earlier this month. Whilst trying to limit the amount of mileage put up on the car, I chose a couple of spots local to me that I hadn’t previously had the chance to explore. With good weather forecast, I set off early on the Friday morning for the Vee in county Tipperary. With the Audi’s impressive MMI navigation leading the way, it was only an hour or so before I arrived at the first location. Whilst it was more than adequate, I wanted something that little bit better. I took this opportunity to quick detail the car and […]
The 2014 Kia Soul
With the official launch of the 2014 Kia Soul having taken place earlier this week in Dublin, I can finally share some of the images from the shoot earlier this month. Working closely with Kia Motors Ireland has been great. They’re a company with energy, vibrance and they know what they want. These images were to be used for the press packets at the official launch so the brief was simple, clean imagery. Kia had sorted the primary location for the shoot in advance, the main courtyard at the Irish Museum of Modern Art. We would start by shooting two cars together before I took one of the cars into the heart of Dublin for extra locations. I needed to focus primarily on the exterior of the car but also captured some details, inside and out. Once I was shooting in the city centre, I needed to run and gun to a certain extent. To remove the distraction of passers-by, I used an ND filter so as to drag the shutter speed out to around ten seconds or so. The Soul itself is further evidence of how far Kia’s cars have come. It’s both comfortable, easy to drive and even the base model is very well specced. It’ll be a left field choice for a lot of conservative car buyers, but I promise you that it’s worth test driving one if you’re in the market. Kia Motors Ireland Read the review on CompleteCar.ie
A New Direction & Meeting the 2014 Mercedes GLA
I’m sure some of you are aware, but I recently parted ways with Speedhunters. This isn’t a bad thing or indeed due to any sort of falling out, rather I believe it to be necessary to further my career. My time with Speedhunters was both happy and of huge benefit to myself but it has come to a stage where I wanted to take my career to the next level and to progress as both a person and photographer. I’m proud to have worked with an amazing bunch of people and will be forever indebted to them. Who knows, I might make a guest appearance or two in the future… Since the beginning of April, I’ve begun work on pursuing a new career path within the automotive industry. Where previously my work was 99.9% editorial with a focus on the aftermarket scene, I’m now aiming to work closer with manufacturers and agencies to document new cars either for PR or commercial purposes. Although on the surface it might not seem that much different – I am still taking pictures of cars – it is a completely different ball game. I have a lot to learn but can’t wait to really immerse myself in the work. My first shoot was courtesy of the great people at CompleteCar.ie. Over the years, the Irish motoring media industry has always disappointed me to a certain extent. An over reliance on stock manufacturer photographer or worse, Irish road tests with cars on UK registration plates. Having met Shane O’Donoghue, editor at CompleteCar, earlier this year, I immediately knew that these guys carried the same passion towards improving the standard within Ireland. As journalists, photographers, marketeers etc. I believe we have an obligation to do the best job possible and to show that the Irish industry is […]
