Toy car photography – Breathing life into your still life
I’ve been looking for new ways to Jazz up my Still life photography class for the coming term in September, Nobody wants to photograph a bunch of grapes for an hour! I also wanted something that was about creating something “In camera” Don’t get me wrong photographing 20 different elements and combining them in Photoshop to make a wonderful composite image is a skill in itself but maybe one for a photoshop class and not one for a photography session, so I’ve been trying a lot of practical effects with model cars (Really I know I’m 49) it’s a great way to have a static subject with great details where you control every aspect of the image from composition to light creative concept… It’s also something you can work on, leave and come back to.
For this shot, I used an old model Jaguar I found in the shed (left by my nephew, who has long outgrown it ) I used a flash behind with an orange gel to light up the smoke camera left and right, coming from behind the subject I have two cheap ring lights set to the cool light setting (They cost seven euro ) There is a bit of controlled daylight lighting the front of the cart and I got the highlights with a small hand-held torch during the 15-second exposure – It was lots of fun I was hoping to get a bit of a Stranger Things, E.T or Back to The Future feel but I will let you be the judge of how successful I was.