Look ma, no Photoshop!
For a good part of my career, I was shooting a lot of automotive photography. From the full line car brochures to campaigns, to just single ads. These were the days when Adobe was a type of construction usually found in the Southwest part of the country. As a result, we were shooting everything “in the camera”; there wasn’t an option.
Challenging? You bet. Stressful? When there was this kind of money involved, and you didn’t come through “with the goods”, you became persona non grata. In other words you never worked for that advertising agency again. For me, the rewards both monetary and visually outweighed the risks. To come back with beautiful imagery, and of course have a lot of fun in the process was far more important to me than whatever my agent was able to charge to the clients.
In my online class with the PPSOP, and in my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops, I stress the importance of creating their photos in the camera. In fact, we work on that premise so my fellow photographers have to unplug themselves from Photoshop during the four weeks online and the five days during the workshop. As a result, they walk away with a much better understanding of how to “make pictures” in the camera, while becoming stronger shooters as a by-product.
The problem as I see it is that the majority of the students I work with only fell in love with photography during the digital age and think that post processing is an important part of the process. People think that Dynamic Range, Histograms, HDR, etc. are terms that are a necessary part of photography when in fact that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Trust me on this, I’ve been shooting for over forty-five years, and for most of those years, I had never thought about any of them and my photos still came out OK.
Doing a wet-down.
In the above photo, I was shooting for Buick, and the client wanted the Houston skyline behind the car. With my Sunpath readings and my Morin2000 hand bearing compass, I found a perfect spot that would elevate me to where the skyline was not only at the same height and right behind the car, but it would get great sunrise light. We received a permit to briefly close the overpass, and had the police stationed at either end.
Right before the shoot, I had a water truck do a wet-down to make the pavement reflect the light while covering up any imperfections like oil stains. I hired a cameras truck that had an arm that could swing me out over the railing, and a platform I could sit on. That way I could not only see the side of the car, but show the railing as well. While the Buick was moving through the scene, the camera truck was also moving at the same speed. By shooting at a slow shutter speed, I could create the illusion of movement even though we were approx. ten miles per hour.
The camera truck
Btw, after the initial fear of falling onto the street below, it was a lot of fun. A lot more fun than creating this photo in the computer, which is the way it would be done now.
Visit my website at: www.joebaraban.com and check out my 2013 workshop schedule at the top of this blog. Come shoot with me sometime.
Don’t forget to send me a photo and question to: AskJoeB@gmail.com.
JoeB
