Automotive Photography: Shooting A Moving Car (part 3)

Continuing on with the previous two installments in the “How to Shoot a Moving Car” (part 1, part 2), here is the final installment. Before reading this installment you should read the previous two to fully understand the safety concerns associated with this.

Once you have everything listed in Automotive Photography: Shooting a Moving Car (part 2) ready and together Its time to actually begin the shoot. Doing a shoot like this was one of the most fun, terrifying, and exciting shoots I have done. But I will speak from experience, this is one type of shoot were breaking the rules can be a very bad thing. I do not mean the rules of composition or photography, I mean the rules of the shoot. DO NOT ever unhook your harness to get a better shot. DO NOT ever hang outside of the vehicle. Respect any other driver on the road. Once you know those you are ready to begin.

1) Make Sure everybody knows the route and what you are trying to do.
You want to keep everybody working together on a shoot like this. So make sure they all know exactly where your going and what your trying to capture. It is best to avoid excessively busy roads. It might also help to have a few shortwave radios (i.e. Walkie Talkies) so that you can communicate with each other and provide direction without interfering with a persons ability to drive.

2) Strap yourself into the harness
This is the time when you want to make sure the harness has the right amount of give and is secured. This is one of the most important steps in getting ready for the shoot.

3) Leave the hatchback open
You want to leave the back open in your vehicle, because trying to open it once your going is pretty dangerous and sometimes pretty hard. If you can get another friend to help with the shoot by making sure that the back of your vehicle stays open and doesn’t shut on you. Just make sure he is strapped into a harness as well.

Once your are going it is our time to start directing how the shoot is going to play out. It is important that you keep your calm during the shoot no matter how things turn out.

The way you shoot the other vehicle can be very dependent on the vehicle itself. But commonly some of the best shots will require a two lane road. Have the vehicle you are shooting pull into the other lane, and pace behind your vehicle. This will allow you to get so pretty nice side-driving shots. You can also have the other vehicle pull out of your lane just a little bit, as you shoot from the corner of you vehicle down the side of the target vehicle to create a pretty unique looking concept. Take into account what is unique about the target vehicle and focus on that. Just remember to not have the drive do anything dangerous simply to capture a photo.