Night Prowler - Umhlanga, South Africa

in #photography6 years ago

Frequent readers here will know that Thursday evenings play host to the weekly Subaru owners club meeting in our small corner of the world. Some evenings we'll just sit around and talk cars, or maybe even go for a "spirited" drive - or sometimes do nothing at all.

Fortunately, this last Thursday was a bit different...

I had my camera equipment in my car from a shoot earlier in the day, and decided to make the most of it by doing an impromptu photoshoot. Two people volunteered their cars for photographic purposes (a black 2007 STi, and a white 2012 WRX). Since shooting a black car at night can be an absolute pain, I focused mostly on the white WRX.

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Out of the 50+ photos from the night, this one was the pick of the bunch

Location? Well, a brand new shopping complex had just finished being built a few hundred meters from our regular meeting spot, so we decided to explore that area. Even though we arrived well after 11pm, there were still plenty of people hanging around and cars driving past - which was a problem, as I had set up nearly in the middle of the road for some shots. But anyway, the location was too good to not try use - just look at those leading lines!

In order to illuminate the car to the best of my abilities, I utilized my favourite piece of equipment for night photography - the "light wand". I bought this handy piece of equipment off eBay on a whim a while back, and it's certainly changed my game when it comes to long exposures. Even though you do look a bit silly walking around a car shining a bright light on it, the results speak for themselves.

Also, our photo shenanigans attracted the attention of no less than five security guards. However, since we were technically still "on the road", they didn't do anything further to stop us.

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Behind the scenes: me taking a photo of the black STi

On the plus side, this photo spread like wildfire the next day through various messaging channels, and I was contacted within hours by two people asking me to do shoots of their cars for them. Looks like that late night impromptu shoot was indeed worth it...

Also, the owner of this car is going to get the photo printed out on A3 photo paper, and framed. It's always good to see photos moving from the screen to paper.

Equipment Setup

CameraCanon 6D
Settings13 second exposure / f16 / ISO 100
LensCanon 24-105 F4 L Series
AdditionalHoya CPL filter / Manfrotto tripod / Yongnuo YN360 light wand
ProcessingLightroom CC
LocationUmhlanga, South Africa

Bonus Photo: The black 2007 STi

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