For the last several years I’ve been trying to move my work in the direction of automotive lifestyle, which blends my love of outdoor active lifestyle photography with commercial photography. I am already out in these amazing locations, shooting with talented athletes that live the lifestyle these car companies are selling with products like the Jeep Wrangler and Subaru Outback. I’d been setting up personal shoots whenever I had the opportunity with vehicles like the Toyota Four Runner and Ford F-150 Raptor.
In February, I received a call from a production company that last minute needed a stills photographer for a RAM Promaster shoot in Austin, TX, and said that my automotive lifestyle work had stood out to them, even though they couldn’t remember where they found my website. Regardless of where they found it, through Wonderful Machine or another photographer search tool, I was excited to not only work for this brand, but I currently lived in a RAM Promaster for the last two and half years! The client loved this tidbit and chatted at length with me about my experience.
It’s always an interesting, double-edged experience working as a stills photographer on a commercial video production set. On one hand, the production is massive and almost all of the difficult problems are taken care of, the talent and set design are perfect. On the other hand, I’m struggling with the video crew to get enough time to jump in and take my photos before they wrap the scene – and these big crews work FAST! The moment the DP says they’re finished the grips start tearing down lighting and moving everything before I get a chance to get my shots.
I also got to experience working from a Russian Arm Car (now called a U-Crane car [Ukraine] for where the factory was) for all of the driving sequences. Observing the U-Crane car driver, the Arm operator, the DP running the gimbal, and the subject car stunt driver all working seamlessly together using an unknown technical language was pure magic. The DP would say one word and all four separate parts of the machine would move in perfect unison.
It was amazing working with Trevor Hill and Daisy Cutter. Can’t wait to work with them again.