Getting Creative with Exterior Detail Shots
Lesson 8 from: The Automotive Photography WorkshopAaron Brimhall
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Getting Creative with Exterior Detail Shots
Lesson 8 from: The Automotive Photography WorkshopAaron Brimhall
Lesson Info
8. Getting Creative with Exterior Detail Shots
Lessons
Meet Aaron
13:26 2Workshop Overview
02:53 3Equipment Breakdown
16:16 4Building Your Brand
07:32 5Getting Work Through Spec Shoots
25:39 6Pre-Production
09:29 7Shooting Hero Shots During A Technical Angle Study
15:44 8Getting Creative with Exterior Detail Shots
08:10Shooting Interior Panoramas of The Dash
13:38 10Illustrating Motion with Rolling Shots
09:34 11Editing Concepts & Philosophy
02:10 12Editing: 3/4ths Front
20:06 13Editing: 3/4th Rear
15:03 14Editing: Finishing the Interior Dash
18:13 15Editing: Making A Preset
32:33 16Editing: Adjusting Presets for Specific Photos
09:39 17Shooting Rollers of the GT3 RS
10:49 18Adding Aesthetic with Atmospherics
16:44Lesson Info
Getting Creative with Exterior Detail Shots
All right. So after you get your establishing shot and work around all the angle studies and basically get everything you need for the brand for the 3/4 front profile, 3/4 rear, et cetera, what I like to do is do a full walk around of the car and get as many. It's pretty cool because you can get as many and kind of like really weird with all the lines of any vehicle you're shooting. And brands like that, you mean you can have, let's say, if I'm shooting the lower part of the passenger front door, (camera shutter clicking) just those lines, they can have that for spreads of a catalog and then they can throw copy around it. It's just like another cool detail that brands like to see. I like to try to like shoot as tight as possible and as wide as possible of each and every little thing that I'm gonna kind of walk around and yeah, you can just kind of get, kind of just have fun with it and get weird. So let's do like a full 180 of, I'll just do a full walk around of this profile side. And ...
I did passenger side again because we don't have the gas cap on this side and basically a clean slate throughout the entire vehicle. (upbeat music) I'll start with normally the front and I'm gonna just go handheld on this and kind of just, that way it's faster and you're kind of getting a lot more things and just have fun with it. And there's no right or wrong way to shoot details of the panels and the design of the car, because that's what it's there for. You can kind of mess around with whatever. So it's basically a blank canvas for you to have fun with and kind of get as creative as you want with it. So I'm gonna do, I kind of like anything with shadows and that way you can see little, you know even just like this part where it goes down here on the hood and you're getting the hood line here and then the hood scoop and kind of everything like that. So I'm kind of gonna go walk around and yeah, just go for it. (upbeat music) As you can see, it's pretty bright outside. We have harsh light, but we are shooting back lit. What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna shoot pretty underexposed not like two underexposed to where it's dark but underexposed enough to where I can pull those shadows out in post and I'm still gonna get all the information there because when you're shooting at a harsh light like this, and if you're shooting overexposed, it's kind of hard to take those highlights down and it's better to work with the shadows rather than the highlights. So I tend to shoot pretty underexposed for a lot of my stuff, but this especially when you're shooting in shade and a lot of the times you were gonna have shade gradually go into light here and there. So yeah, let's kind of get to it and shoot a bunch of bunch of detailed stuff here. And I'm just basically looking for anything that looks interesting to me. And like I said in the beginning, there's no right or wrong way to shoot this. Shadows on anything, I think, look really cool. So all this right here looks really interesting to me and it kind of fades off into this whole harsh light, which looks really cool. But again, play with it, almost like keep this at when we're playing with like rule of thirds, keep this left side of the image and then all this over here, this blown out. You can keep that pretty overexposed and they can throw a copy around that too. So I'm always thinking for catalogs, books, like whatever the brand is gonna do with these images. Just be conscious of that. And yeah, a lot of things brands really like to see are badging obviously, so the Ford here, the Ford and the Raptor badge for this vehicle is on the back. Little things like the hood scoop, these vents right here, so just take note of that and then rock sliders too. These things right here are a huge thing for catalogs for brands. So whatever accessories that are on the car you gonna want to like capture that as well. (camera shutter clicking) (soft music) I like a lot of the time shooting and I like seeing the flare from the Sun, but you'll find out more times than not brands do not like flares in any of the images especially when it's like overlapping the vehicle that you're shooting. I don't have one on set with me now, but usually if you don't or if you do have, normally have a two or four but big square floppy disc, that will block the lens hood because this lens hood only does so much. And even if you don't have a floppy, even if you're covering the Sun with your hand, that you're not getting any sort of flare from the Sun, because I'm shooting a lot of back lit. So it tends to, we're gonna have a lot of flares here and there, but I'm gonna do my best to not get any flare overlapping the vehicle that we're shooting. (soft music) Another note when getting details, let's say, so look at this as a full image right here. And I'm just trying to get the left half of this side of the truck in focus. And then we have a nice little line of the background and I try to get it right in the middle of the photo and that way, another thing for copy, I'm always thinking of brand copy. So that's just another thing to play around with. (camera shutter clicking) (soft music) Nice little background plates, and you can just see just some sort of texture. So it's not just the car. Yeah, it's just another thing that I like to play with. (upbeat music) (camera shutter clicking) Another thing to be aware of, this color, there's no reflection or anything but you have reflection in windows even in the lights, the front and rear lights. You're gonna be really, really cautious of making sure nothing is in those reflections, even yourself. I mean, you can edit it out in post, but if you want it easy on yourself, make sure that all reflections are clear and nothing, because usually on sets like this, there's gonna be people or someone's gonna move around and you're gonna see people in the reflections and it's just gonna get messy and you don't want that. So just take note of that and yeah, just be sure everything around you is clear and you just want clean slate in the end. So that's something I always look for. (upbeat music) (camera shutter clicking)
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Ratings and Reviews
Ben Waugh
Worth Every Cent! Keen For More! This was awesome, definitely keen to see more of these in the future! Keep them coming dude! Loved seeing your edit breakdown and workflow. Would love to see some more of the behind the scenes of planning a shoot too - @benwaugh
Allison Gregory
From Zero to Hero Awesome workshop to not only get my first taste of automotive shoots, but I am walking away with a shoot set-up and planned to create speck work and present brands with decks. I loved how Aaron really explained everything he was doing. He rocks.
Adrian Mirabal
Amazing and WORTH IT! I have followed Aaron Brimhall for a while now and when I saw he was releasing a workshop I knew I had to get it! If you are wanting to shoot anything in motion or automotive action this is the workshop for you!
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