Shooting a car with a model posing.

[Jackson Pennell]

Any pointers from the pros? I've got a buddy of mine who found an attractive girl who is interested in posing on his car, any tips?

[John Thawley]

Yeah... decide in advance whether he's shooting the car or the girl. ;)

I'm serious.

JT

[Jeff Wilson]

Has she done modeling before? If not, allot more time for the shoot and be prepared to coach her quite a bit so she doesn't look wooden. And, like JT said, decide whether the subject is the car or the girl.

[John Jovic]

I've always found it difficult to shoot a girl and car, primarily because the car always had to look good, there just happened to be a girl in the picture also. The rub is that you can't just concentrate on the car and let the girl look like crap, you have to concentrate on both and it's really not easy. With girls you have to watch their hair, poses, stomach bulges, cleavage, expressions, eye contact, everything.

I tend to shoot cars with a polariser so my shutter speeds tend to be on the low side, sometimes too low to freeze a models movement. You need to keep a high enough shutter speed to freeze any movement. Focus on the model, forget about the car. If you need both sharp then try to position the model roughly where you'd have focused on the car to get the whole car sharp.

You might be better off using flash to light the girl, with brollies, soft boxes. Or maybe just a large reflector, like the California Sunbounce.

It's not uncommon for a girl to be shot in a studio, or controlled environment and then to be composited into a shot. Import Tuner seems to do this alot, at least lately. The girls are shot by (presumably) fashion guys, the cars by car guys. Don't be sucked in by these kinds of images and think you should be able to do the same. Yes, you might, but not the first time you try it.

Have fun, good luck.

JJ

[Jacob Leveton]

I've posted about this before. couple tips:

- look around online for examples. Some of the older Import Tuner stuff is good (mid 2003 til mid 2004 when they had the 'fashion' period.) AutoImportCraze.com has some good stuff. Onlineshowoff had some good ideas, but they were bought out last year and I can't find their old features. Makes and Models magazine is pretty good. There's more, just shop around.

- Decide whether you want to focus on the model, or both the car and the model. focus on the model = tighter crops, often cutting off most of the car. Focus on both = wider angles, usually the model isn't interacting with the car at all. You can't really focus on the car with a model in the shot, the model will just look like she was 'thrown' into the shot and it doesn't work if you ask me.

- Most cover shots of magazines (like lowrider, Import Tuner, and Performance Auto and Sound) are composite shots. Keep this in mind! Don't get mad when your shots don't look like theirs.

- If you're shooting a larger car, have the model move away from the car. Even though she will feel awkward standing 5-10 feet away from the car, the shot will look better.

- avoid wider angle lenses. 90% of the time, they won't be complimenting to the model.

- don't get so caught up that you crop her knees / arms / etc. Check and double check your composition. You can always crop tighter after the fact, you can't add back arms / legs / fingers / etc.

[Mike Ditz]

It looks like the cut and paste aka Frakenstein look is popular with tuner magazines (and movie posters) these days. Shoot everything separatly and fix it in post. I took a look at the Import Tuner cover...well it's pretty bad photography/photoshopping. But it is a style, the photog has some great stuff on his site, (like the shots for the TV shows) . A l ot of people forget that retouching is as much of an art as photography, not everybody can or should do both.

It seems that with all the micro management of pictures these days, like cutting out the model from shot A and the car from shot F and her head from shot J and the background from shot Q, the pictures should be better than they are...

Try and have some fun, make up your own style or copy someone elses, do some shots where the car is a prop and she is the star and do some where the car is the star and she is a prop. Andif you are going to strive for doing something interesting aim higher than the chick and tuner car mags.

[Daniel Buck]

Yeah... decide in advance whether he's shooting the car or the girl. ;)

I'm serious.

JT


I agree! Thats for another thread though...

[Matt Campbell]

I have done a several car/model shoots and had great success but it is very difficult to control the situation. You can have the car look perfect all you want but the model might not "be on her game" and the shoot comes out horrible. Any slight irregularity can cause the photo to come out a miss (hair, arm, fingers, shoes, light, eyes) and if the model is spot on the car can be out. lol. I enjoy shooting car/model as it is a challenge but maybe that is just me. I have two of the shoots on my site if you would like to see them.

[Bob Chapman]

Yeah... decide in advance whether he's shooting the car or the girl. ;)

I'm serious.

JT

Your pretense that we have the capacity to make a conscious decision to shoot one or the other intrigues me. When a photographer approaches a fantastical female form standing in close proximity to a fine automobile, each subsequent photo leaves the automobile decreasingly relevant. It's a law of physics. It's a law of nature. If you disagree, I question the hormones coarsing through you veins. ...and I question the f-stop setting on your camera.

FWIW, I subscribe to the Dave Davies school of photography. Shoot beautiful cars, or shoot beautiful women, but don't fool yourself into believing you can do justice to either in the same frame. ;)

http://www.autosportimage.com/auto_photo_net/2006/petit_le_mans/20060929_d_0002.JPG

http://www.autosportimage.com/auto_photo_net/2006/petit_le_mans/20060929_d_0011.JPG

http://www.autosportimage.com/auto_photo_net/2006/petit_le_mans/20060929_d_0044.JPG

[Daniel Buck]

Your pretense that we have the capacity to make a conscious decision to shoot one or the other intrigues me. When a photographer approaches a fantastical female form standing in close proximity to a fine automobile, each subsequent photo leaves the automobile decreasingly relevant. It's a law of physics. It's a law of nature. If you disagree, I question the hormones coarsing through you veins. ...and I question the f-stop setting on your camera.

FWIW, I subscribe to the Dave Davies school of photography. Shoot beautiful cars, or shoot beautiful women, but don't fool yourself into believing you can do justice to either in the same frame. ;)

I completely agree. I think it's silly why car owners want a shot of their car with a beautiful woman on the car. They spend so much time, money and effort building the car, then they think they have to put a woman in the picture to show off the car more. But when they show the pictures to their buddies, it's always like "WOW, look at her big.. and round..." and so on. A good car (or good photograph of a car) doesn't need a woman to make it look good, all the woman will do is take the show.

I have done one shoot with vehicles and a woman together, I won't ever do another one. To me it doesn't make sense. Shot the women and cars, separately.

[John Thawley]

I think Bob forced himself to decide whether to shoot the girl or her breast. Wise choice young grasshopper.

JT