THE SETUP DRIVE-BY SHOOTING
Transform a suburban driveway into a high-end studio in a flash
01 TRIPOD
We need to take several shots of the car while moving our flash and reflective board into different spots, and the camera needs to stay static throughout. So a tripod is a must. With everything aligned, piecing the frames together in Photoshop is easier.
02 BLACK BACKDROP
It’s a combination of exposure settings and lighting that keeps the surroundings dark, but still a dark pop-up sheet placed behind the car helps keep the background clear. We move the backdrop over several frames to cover the length of the car.
03 REFLECTIVE BOARD
A subtle reflection helps to ground the car, but most of us don’t have a huge piece of Perspex to sit our car on. So instead we’ve used a reflective board, created by sandwiching a piece of black card behind the clear Perspex of an old clip frame.
04 CLASSIC CAR
This project is ideal for capturing a classic car like the 1969 TVR Tuscan V6. Only 101 were produced, of which around 50 have survived. It makes for a grand subject, but you can use the same technique for all kinds of vehicles – or any large object!
05 STUDIO FLASHES
We used two mains-powered flash units from a home studio kit. These kick out enough light to overpower the sun on an overcast day. Each was set to optical slave, then triggered with a separate Speedlite, which was linked to the camera.
06 REMOTE RELEASE
A remote release is useful so the camera is not disturbed between shots, and it frees you to position the flash. We used an interval timer to take several shots each time, so we could move the flash into different positions then review the shots.