Workin' For The Weekend

My potential first guinea pig - my Hummer H2

It's Friday and life is good. The new Star Trek flick opened this week and it's a definite on the weekend agenda. Now that the new website is almost finished, it's time to actually get back to shooting. As I mentioned yesterday, I'm a gnat's eyelash close to starting on a personal photo project I've been wanting to do for a while - detail shots of vintage, rare, Elvis-cool cars. I've been prepping for this by watching the videos on +KelbyTraining.com on shooting cars as I've never photographed cars (at least not the way I want to do it). I always find that when I've never done a certain kind of photography, +Scott Kelby's videos serve as a good platform from which to gain a basic understanding of what to do (and not do).

Capital Eurocars Porsche dealership

I've done a couple of commercial shoots for auto dealerships but the focus was on the facilities and not so much anything fancy-schmancy with the cars. Now it's time to take the leap into detail shots of these babies - emblems, grills, tail lights, wheels, anything that is distinctive about the vehicle.

My other potential guinea pig - my 911 Carerra Cabriolet

In addition to watching the videos, I've accumulated and organized portable lighting equipment so I can get the shots that I'm seeing in my head. I'll walk you through the lighting equipment and actual setups in a different post, but for now, I've pretty much got everything I need to tackle the job. Primarily, I will be using strip softboxes, hot shoe flashes and a commander unit to trigger the flashes. For most of the shots, one small strip softbox will be all need but for some shots I may use two small strip boxes or maybe two larger ones that I have in the studio. Another light modifier that may get some use for full shots of the rear end or front end is my new Westcott 7' shoot through parabolic umbrella.

Photos courtesy of Tallahassee Antique Car Museum

Before I finalize the details of when I can shoot a collection of some 100 rare, vintage cars (a Tucker, a couple of Batmobiles, and all manner of drop dead gorgeous, perfectly restored cars from early classics to muscle cars to sports cars), I figured I'd better get my feet a little wet and get some hands-on experience with the lighting and setup for the shots I want to get. It's one thing to watch videos but an entirely different thing to actually shoot something yourself. If and when I head to the location to do the shoot, I don't want to waste time inventing the wheel.

So, this weekend I'm going to take a few practice swings with a couple of my own cars which are somewhat cool in their own respect. I haven't decided which of the two I am going to use as my guinea pig (and I may shoot both, what the heck) but I will hopefully work out all the kinks and gain a lot of valuable knowledge from the exercise.

Take Me Out To The Ballgame

Saturday afternoon I'll be at Dick Howser Stadium for Florida State's final home game of the season. It's Senior Day and I've just gotten the assignment to shoot the game. Senior Day means not only getting the usual array of action shots during the game, but photos of the Seniors as they're recognized for their time at FSU. Lots of pageantry shots, players with parents pre-game, and trying to capture the emotion of the Seniors as they wrap up their careers s Seminloles.

Other than that, I'm ready for the weekend to begin. I was hoping that i would be able to retire from the practice of law after Wednesday's Power Ball lottery drawing ($390 Million and counting, enough to build me one boom-shacka-lacka photo studio and kick back) but the Force just wasn't with me and I didn't win. On the up side, neither did anyone else, so the jackpot is now over $550 Million and hopefully it will be mine tomorrow. If I don't post anything on Monday, it's because I'm off to Alaska, Australia, the Galapagos Islands, Machu Pichu, and who knows where else I'll go if I hit the big one.

Cheers.