About photographing Astons
Discussion
As some of you already know, I'm kind of a serious amateur photographer and long time Photoshop user. A friend of mine, Scott Kelby, is president of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP) and his Kelby Training division features online training by many experts in the trade. One of these experts happens to be Tim Wallace who is the official photographer for Aston Martin. You can see some of Tim's amazing work at his site: Ambient Life
Tim had several online classes on photographing cars on Kelby Training. After watching these, I decided to put my new-found skills to the test and the results were posted here on Pistonheads. I showed my results to Scott and he asked if he could shoot my car as well. His results were seen on his blog and this Facebook post.
A few months ago I commented to Scott that Tim didn't have a class on photographing car interiors and he said he would ask him to make one the next time he came over from the UK. Well, last week, Tim came in to film his new class and Scott called me over to spend the day at the set with him!
Tim is a great guy and I got to observe the master at work and pick his brain on all matters. One thing he mentioned is that he has been working for the past 8 months on an officially licensed 100th Anniversary book that will be available for sale through your dealer.
He also shared some hints of a couple of exciting things to come before the end of the year, but I'm not at liberty to divulge these. Just know that there are still a few surprises left for the anniversary celebration.
You can follow Tim on Twitter by clicking this link and see some of his amazing Rapide (not S) shots here.
Scott Kelby's Twitter page is here.
ETA:
For those who care, Tim normally shoots with a 200 Mega-pixel (!!) Hasselblad H4D-200MS which costs a measly $36,000US!
Some of Tim's brilliant work:
Tim had several online classes on photographing cars on Kelby Training. After watching these, I decided to put my new-found skills to the test and the results were posted here on Pistonheads. I showed my results to Scott and he asked if he could shoot my car as well. His results were seen on his blog and this Facebook post.
A few months ago I commented to Scott that Tim didn't have a class on photographing car interiors and he said he would ask him to make one the next time he came over from the UK. Well, last week, Tim came in to film his new class and Scott called me over to spend the day at the set with him!
Tim is a great guy and I got to observe the master at work and pick his brain on all matters. One thing he mentioned is that he has been working for the past 8 months on an officially licensed 100th Anniversary book that will be available for sale through your dealer.
He also shared some hints of a couple of exciting things to come before the end of the year, but I'm not at liberty to divulge these. Just know that there are still a few surprises left for the anniversary celebration.
You can follow Tim on Twitter by clicking this link and see some of his amazing Rapide (not S) shots here.
Scott Kelby's Twitter page is here.
ETA:
For those who care, Tim normally shoots with a 200 Mega-pixel (!!) Hasselblad H4D-200MS which costs a measly $36,000US!
Some of Tim's brilliant work:
Edited by KarlFranz on Thursday 11th April 01:36
Fabulous pics Karl, is the first one HDR?
I've thought of taking my own car to the Blinking Eye bridge in Newcastle, it's a great location for a photoshoot and the place is usually crawling with a different type of eye candy too
I'm just getting into the DSLR thing myself but nowhere near this standard!
Thanks for posting, enjoyed them, Steve
I've thought of taking my own car to the Blinking Eye bridge in Newcastle, it's a great location for a photoshoot and the place is usually crawling with a different type of eye candy too
I'm just getting into the DSLR thing myself but nowhere near this standard!
Thanks for posting, enjoyed them, Steve
I thought my iPhone did ok with 8 mega pixels 
You can only dream of having my garage carpet in your house Actually KF and for fear of being on topic.
It may be the gamma of my monitor but that shot on the alpine pass just doesn't convince. Is it an actual "in camera" picture or are the cars "plonked in the scene" using photoshop?
That said it never ceases to amaze me how viewing context and environment can change ones' perception of good/bad imagery. The number of times I've seen a shot that looks great projected on a 40 foot theatre screen but looks just unbelievably crap on a 24" monitor.
It's not as easy as it looks this post image stuff you know!
It may be the gamma of my monitor but that shot on the alpine pass just doesn't convince. Is it an actual "in camera" picture or are the cars "plonked in the scene" using photoshop?
That said it never ceases to amaze me how viewing context and environment can change ones' perception of good/bad imagery. The number of times I've seen a shot that looks great projected on a 40 foot theatre screen but looks just unbelievably crap on a 24" monitor.
It's not as easy as it looks this post image stuff you know!
KarlFranz said:
Yeah, that camera is a beast! iPhone does take lovely pictures for a phone. But even a DSLR can't be used for some of the shots he creates. Only a digital medium-format camera will do.
Yeah and 1.2 GigBYTES per frame.So over your 5 megabit broadband connection and assuming 100% speed (which you never get) that would take 2hrs 43 minutes per frame to download.
More likely about 5 hours per frame.
peterr96 said:
Actually KF and for fear of being on topic.
It may be the gamma of my monitor but that shot on the alpine pass just doesn't convince. Is it an actual "in camera" picture or are the cars "plonked in the scene" using photoshop?
That said it never ceases to amaze me how viewing context and environment can change ones' perception of good/bad imagery. The number of times I've seen a shot that looks great projected on a 40 foot theatre screen but looks just unbelievably crap on a 24" monitor.
It's not as easy as it looks this post image stuff you know!
Yes, as amazing as it looks, that was done in-camera. Aston sends cars all over for him to photograph and would not allow him to simply plunk a car image down on a different background. It may be the gamma of my monitor but that shot on the alpine pass just doesn't convince. Is it an actual "in camera" picture or are the cars "plonked in the scene" using photoshop?
That said it never ceases to amaze me how viewing context and environment can change ones' perception of good/bad imagery. The number of times I've seen a shot that looks great projected on a 40 foot theatre screen but looks just unbelievably crap on a 24" monitor.
It's not as easy as it looks this post image stuff you know!
Most people are amazed at the images Tim pulls out of a camera. He told me the story about how one client asked for him to send them the in-camera RAW files from a shoot he had just done and not the post-processed ones they had received. He had to explain to them that this was indeed what he sent!
p.s. Perhaps you need to buy a better monitor. LOL
peterr96 said:
Yeah and 1.2 GigBYTES per frame.
So over your 5 megabit broadband connection and assuming 100% speed (which you never get) that would take 2hrs 43 minutes per frame to download.
More likely about 5 hours per frame.
You guys only have 5Mbps broadband? Over here we have 60Mbps and that's slow compared to some areas. Heck, my iPhone on AT&T LTE cellular regularly gets 40-50Mbps. So over your 5 megabit broadband connection and assuming 100% speed (which you never get) that would take 2hrs 43 minutes per frame to download.
More likely about 5 hours per frame.
peterr96 said:
Actually KF and for fear of being on topic.
It may be the gamma of my monitor but that shot on the alpine pass just doesn't convince. Is it an actual "in camera" picture or are the cars "plonked in the scene" using photoshop?
Now that I look at the photo again after your comment, it does seems like the cars aren't 'right'. Almost too big or toylike in appearance.It may be the gamma of my monitor but that shot on the alpine pass just doesn't convince. Is it an actual "in camera" picture or are the cars "plonked in the scene" using photoshop?
Jockman said:
For the first time ever, KF.....you sounded like an American 
Yes, probably, and apologies for that. However, it was meant as genuine surprise as we are constantly being told by the media how our Internet capabilities are sorely lacking compared to the rest of the civilized world. KarlFranz said:
Yes, probably, and apologies for that. However, it was meant as genuine surprise as we are constantly being told by the media how our Internet capabilities are sorely lacking compared to the rest of the civilized world.
I had a girlfriend once from Scottsdale? In Phoenix, Arizona and when she stayed with me in the UK she used to tell me how so far behind we were in, say, the latest episode of ER Tbh I believe at the moment I am running on 50mb fibre optic
V8LM said:
Tim's photos are amazing, but I'm not sure they are all done in camera - many of these are multiple exposures using a flash to highlight features. Aston Workshop use him for their cars. I think you can buy a calendar from them with his work in.
I will tell you this, Tim is a firm believer in getting as much done in-camera as possible. Most post-processing is limited to dust and speck removal. He even told me that if you try to sharpen pics from a Hasselblad (a common post-processing step on DSLR photography) the pictures just don't look right. Scott Kelby and I both swore that certain images he had couldn't have been done in-camera because we were trying (albeit with DSLRs) and couldn't achieve the same look. I remember looking at the display on the back of my camera after taking my first shot using his techniques and being so impressed and happy at what I saw without having to use Photoshop).
Again, this is not to say that there is NO post-processing, but we are so used to seeing manipulated images these days that it's sometimes hard to believe what can be accomplished by a camera in the hands of a true master.
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