What I wouldn't give to shoot... [rant]

[Jacob Leveton]

a running, street legal car outside of normal business hours!!

the past 3 shoots i've done for a magazine have all been non-functional non-street legal cars that had to be shot between 9a - 5p during the week. what a pain!

- first one was a show car that had the alternator die 'the day before' so it had to be pushed everywhere. They were located in a cool little business park, but it started raining 5 minutes into the shoot, so I had to move indoors. Luckily, i happened to have my photo lights in the car, so I strobed it and it came out alright....

- second one was a 'show car' that hasn't been registered in 3 years. Luckily, it was in a little industrial area and i found a cool little 'shack' to shoot next to less than a block away. But getting in and out of the driveway was a pain since it was so low.

- just yesterday, I shot a twin feature on 2 cars. 1 was a race car, the other was a street car. The race car couldn't leave the complex since it's far from street legal and the company trailer had their other race car in it and it was too much hassle to switch it. Shot it in front of the bay door of the shop that built it.

What i wouldn't give to shoot a car at my location of choice on a weekend during optimal light!

ok, rant is over. back to your normally scheduled programming.

[John Jovic]

OK, my turn now.
How about shooting 4 (out of the last 5) black cars, the hardest to shoot in terms of locations, time of day, reflections, keeping clean etc...
Just got off the phone and was asked to shoot another black car.

JJ

[Drew Phillips]

Boo hoo. You're getting paid to shoot cars.

[John Jovic]

Boo hoo. You're getting paid to shoot cars.

Be carefull what you wish for...

I used to be a shiny assed geek (computer background) and dreamed of the days I'd be shooting cars for a living.

I didn't factor in the 'photographers knee' that often follows.
Have you heard of 'photographers back'?
Crawling around on the ground for half the shoot.
I hate waking up at 3 am for a sunrise.
Battling the elements, wind and rain to get the job done.
Freezing and long winters, what, you think you can just work on nice warm days?
Putting up with owners who think it's OK to turn up 2 hours late, after all you don't really need all that time just to take a few car pictures do you?
Being attacked and shit on by breeding birds.
Losing locations, even after checking them earlier the same day.
Security gaurds, just out of "security gaurd school", who have guns and NO experience...
I'm sure I'm on some government record as being a possible terrorist because I've got location scouting pics of just about every interesting industrial installation in my area. Surely taking pictures of a refinery makes you a possible terrorist...
Yes you have freedom when you work for your self but with that comes some stress, be ready for it.
Guess what, it is all about who you know, that's not just an excuse used by people to avoid trying. The thing is, it's easy to meet people, you just have to go and do it.
Guess what else, you are only as good as your last job. Stuff up a few, maybe due to elements beyond your control and sudenly your reputation can be in question

I'm sure I've missed heaps of bad bits, these are the few that come to mind. But no, it's not all bad, you just need to realise that it's definitely not all good either.

JJ

[Paul Hansen]

Towards the OP, I just have to say, unless you shoot manufacturer press cars, it's not just there. ;)
The funny thing about Japan, the smaller the tuner shop, the more likely the car actually runs. But god forbid you shoot more than an hour between 10am and 4pm.

[Jacob Leveton]

john - security guards carry guns in Australia?! over here, they just carry flashlights and chips on their shoulders :-)

[John Jovic]

john - security guards carry guns in Australia?! over here, they just carry flashlights and chips on their shoulders :-)
Thankfully not very often.

Sounds like you've had a bad run lately. It happens.
JJ

[Morgan J Segal]

One for John

http://frase.id.au/pics/waaambulance_533.jpg

And one for Jacob

http://www.sweetwaterhsa.com/~terryc/Waambulance.jpg

[Todd Corzett]

One for John And one for Jacob

:D ROTFLMAO :D

Be carefull what you wish for... it's not all bad, you just need to realise that it's definitely not all good either.

Cry me a river... better than flipping burgers, or if it's not... quit and flip burgers :eek:
Rants are all good (the non-running crap light stuff would piss me off too), but at the end of the day... if you didn't want to do it, then you'd quit and do something else. So, I'll second Drew's comment... You're getting paid to shoot cars.

-Todd...

[Erik Anderson]

I was considering posting about my four day weekend of covering an exotic performance driving event, getting four hours of sleep per night, having 15-20 minutes to shoot pairs of cars in three locations around town, having to climb in and out of countless exotic cars for rides, hauling minimal gear (one body, one wide, one tele, a single flash, a couple cards and an extra battery (no tripod or even a monopod)) since none of these 'supercars' have a trunk big enough to carry anything more than a fat wallet or a can of fix-a-flat.

And I certainly wasn't going to bitch about having to be the last one to leave a location and then get back to town forty miles away (on country backroads no less) then be the first person out ahead of the group to get their parade shots.

I also wasn't going to bitch about taking photos of another non moving car (See my request of a B&W critique in the other forum) and the horrible reflections and ligthing I had to deal with to try and get shots for the magazine.

Nope. You're not going to hear a peep out of me.

[John Jovic]

:Cry me a river... better than flipping burgers, or if it's not... quit and flip burgers

Todd, you know, flipping burgers aint that bad. It's an option, although I prefer stacking supermarket shelves personally.

Your work does not define you, it just pays the bills.

JJ

[Todd Corzett]

If we're ranting about a long "day"...

Shooting the 9am morning warm-up for the 24hr of Le Mans, needing to go to the "Super U" to get food that's not a crummy ham sandwich (Jimmy can rant about that more), getting to the track at noon for a 5pm start, shooting the grid, getting in-place an hour in advance to shoot the start, shooting the start, shooting non-stop from 2pm until 2am at various locations around the track (having to deal with barbwire and Dutch fans - again, Jimmy can rant), back to the media center to dump cards and process a little before the sunrise, going out 2 hours early to get a place for the sunrise, shooting sunrise, shooting from 5am-11am, laying down for 30min under my desk in the media center to try and "sleep", process more images, shoot the final 2 hours of pit stops, get ready to shoot the finish and podium (again Jimmy can rant on that one), shooting the finish and four podiums with TONS of stupid fans with flags getting in the way, processing of the "days" images until near midnight, learning that McDonalds is closed so no "real" dinner... and finally going to sleep nearly 40 hours after I woke-up. (I'll not go into the next day's "adventure" of getting to the airport, dealing with French that want me to check my camera equipment, 14 hour flights with no sleep, 5 hour delays, etc... as well as the previous weeks worth of long days, “scampi”, etc...)

Would I do it again, IN A HEARTBEAT!

-Todd...