Cars -C+C welcome

Misfitsracing · Aug 15, 2011

My final series for my photography class. We had to present this in class, so there is really a bit of narrative that goes along with the series, why I chose these cars and these locations- things like that. I like my photos to look realistic, so don't I don't do a ton of editing. 1 has the most, and it was my first attempt at a panning shot of a moving car. 3 comes from before I started the class and was shot with my Canon SX20is point and shoot, before I knew much about any kind of technique.

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fokker · Aug 15, 2011

Sorry to say it but these are mostly pretty rubbish photos.
Specific critiques:

#1. Not a good pan - the subject is far from sharp and the background is not blurred sufficiently to convey the motion. You need to use a slightly slower shutter but especially work on your technique so you can keep the subject sharp. Googling panning techniques for a better explanation of how to do it right. Also, I would have cropped a bit off the top to get rid of the blown out sky and make the photo more of a landscape orientation - square crops rarely work for a moving subject. I do like the position of the car in the frame horizontally though.

#2 Not a bad angle on the car but you cut off the back and the big sun flare is an ugly distraction

#3. The best of the lot. good angle (nice and low to the ground to accentuate the stance of the car) and framing is good (rule of thirds + subject moving into frame). It's a pity about the bland looking sky but there's not a great deal you could have done about that unless you were using several off-camera lights to light the car. Again, I would crop some of the sky down - the square crop is really not working.

#4 The car looks good but unfortunately the background is ruining this one. Try shooting in a different location is the easiest way to improve this one.

#5 Not bad but the dull colours don't make the photo 'pop' in any way. The little bit of tree top right is a distraction. Another thing to consider might be to try and either raise or lower the angle so the horizon doesn't interfere so much with the lines of the car.

pixilstudio · Aug 16, 2011

i totally agree plus the exposures are all over the place. try a gray card until you get better at looking at light

Misfitsracing · Aug 17, 2011

Not trying to defend bad technique, but some explanation of the photos is probably in order. These pictures are not trying to show of the cars. The general theme of the series was to try and put the cars where I thought that they belonged, doing what they do best.

1. This was the first car I shot. I was going for Sunday afternoon drive look. The owner was in a hurry, so I get one pass to shoot the photos. I wanted to try an a pan, and the fast shutter speeds lacked any of the feeling I was going for. I will continue to work on my technique, no arguments from me on that. How can I get the sky to come out more? It seemed to be unnatural in blue tone, so I bumped it down a bit with the rest of the background to make the car come out a bit more.

2. I had a bit of a history as a street racer- I have "correct" shots of this car, but I wasn't looking to show off the car, I was looking for the picture that brought out the best emotional response from me. It takes me right back to the two lane blacktops I used to race on. The cars we raced were never that nice, but I digress- I was probably to personal in my selection of this photo from the set. The sun flare seems to be a love it or hate it. I liked it, so I kept it. My bad on the cutoff.

3. No land speed racer complains about a crystal clear sky. Not great for photography, but God was the racing good that day. This was a candid shot at 5 am.

4. I said I was trying to shoot the cars where they belonged- the buick would go no farther than making it to the driveway, so I figured it belonged there. Does anyone have any thoughts on how a head on shot with the car still in the garage would have looked?

5. I regret this one. A lot. I don't know what I was thinking when I selected this from the much better photos of the car and background.

Note- none of these are a square crop- click the original size button to the proper aspect ratio.