I had two instructions: Take 20 photos of one subject, and to use a fixed focal length. I assumed the purpose of this assignment was a lesson in culling. End up with a lot a photos and narrow it down to your 20 best, and from there also present your single best image. While this did happen, I also discovered myself looking for ways to push this assignment creatively (and as a side note, an excuse to clean my car).
My focal length was 35mm as I thought it would lend itself to a great deal of flexibility in the type of shots I could take. My subject was my car. I thought this will be a decent subject, there are probably lots of cool lines and shapes to shoot. At first this was true. I got up before work when the sun was lower and creating longer shadows and started taking basic shots of my cars exterior. From there was the next obvious, get up close and take pictures of the details. After that, I thought it would be a good idea to use the bright sun to get some contrasty shots of the interior as its all black and chrome.
While taking the interior pics and seeing the possibilites of contrast, I wanted more, and decided to wait until night and break out the flash. Positioning the flash outside of the car directly into the window bare bulb gave me exactly what I was looking for. The result became stark black and white images with the flash creating forms in the darkness.
After exhausing that idea, I decided to try some long exposures. My car has this odd feature where I can choose the color of the interior lights. I normally just leave it on blue and never fuss with it. But at night the streetlights are orange, so the blue light was a nice compliment. I set up the camera on a tripod at a 30 second exposure and struggled with numerous blurry photos before finally setting up a remote trigger as to not knock the camera, and used a flashlight to illuminate what I was trying to focus on. After seeing the result I realized wanted to explore some other long exposures.
The choice was obvious, get the car in motion to capture some light streaks. So I parked my car on the street, set up the camera and took some test shots to find a nice composition. Once set I recruited the help of my wife to just push the trigger. I hopped in the car, drove around the block and gave her a call to signal my ready. She pushed the button and I drove down the street and stopped where I had setup the car in my test shots. The idea worked almost immediately, streaky lights and a ghostly car. From there I found myself doing laps around the block over and over testing different speeds, different resting times, and different camera positions as I used my car to paint light streaks through my composition.
My favourite image and the culmination of photographing a single subject repeatedly. Thanks Mandy.
My first image, and also still a favourite.
Loud, aggressive, and in your face.
Does this count as normal wear and tear?
The flash photography begins...
#filthy
30 second exposure
Painting with my car