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cam bowers's picture

Audi A5 Shoot

Hey I just started shooting Cars this is my second stab at it shooting my A5 in Malibu. Let me know what you guys think or if anything jumps out at you, i'd love to get some feedback!

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6 Comments

Great photo! Love the coloring and nice clean style, also beautiful car man. The only thing that bugs me about the photo is it seems slanted (lower on left) maybe it's just the way the car is sitting and the uneven horizon, but I think if you adjusted to make the rear of the car level...might just be me.

Nice shot Cam - you clearly have an eye for shooting cars - it certainly doesn't look like your second attempt. There are a few small issues that I can see, most of which are to do with your post processing. The angle of the car is nice, and you've done well to use the surroundings to highlight the lines of the car. Personally I think that the front wheel is turned a little too much to the right, but other than that, good job. There are several areas in the image where you have done some cloning, and to me these are quite obvious. There are quite a few repeated patterns in the dirt, and also in the hills just above the edge of the gravel line. The human eye is really good at picking up these areas as patterns rarely occur in nature. A few minutes more work with the clone tool would fix this. There are a few marks on the rear of the car, which leads me to assume you cloned out the number plate too. There are some things that are quite hard to get right when cloning - smooth surfaces - like the body of the car, and rough surfaces like the dirt. It takes a lot of practice to get these right. The dirt is one of the hardest in my opinion as there are all sorts of colour, contrast and sharpness shifts going on. It is always easier to fix what you can before you take the photo. Don't want a licence plate? Take it off. Rubbish on the ground? Move it. As Dylon pointed the horizon appears slanted on the left hand side. Overall, a very nice image, that with a few tweaks will be a great image. Colours and tones are stunning as is the location. Hope this helps.

Hey thanks for the feedback from you guys I didn't even notice the levels were off and i'll keep working at the cloning parts of it those seem to be the toughest getting them to appear seamless. It was helpful to get a fresh set of eyes on it though.

For a second attempt you did a good job. In the series IMO there may a bit too many Photoshop tricks, although a lot of the look in the last few years had moved to more fanciful,CGI and less "real". For example for better or worse the shot above looks like a composite as the car has no reflections or colors to "anchor" it into the background.
If these shots are portfolio pieces its pretty much a no-no to use the manufacturers trademarked logos and graphic pieces in your own shots..If on the other hand these are for Audi then that's great to be shooting for them so quickly.

I agree with the suggestion of 'photographic finesse' . The bright right side is indeed a little distracting and, overall, the composition is my main issue: it is too empty on the right side. I would crop out part of the right side so the left side would not seem to be too heavy.

Cam, did you light the car with anything?