Tyler Shields Blows Up His Rolls Royce Silver Shadow... For Art

Photographer Tyler Shields is known to be one of the craziest photographers in the world. Just few months ago we posted about how he fed a $100k purse to an alligator, all in the name of art. That seemed to be a bold move that can take years to recover from (financially). This week Tyler proved once again that money doesn't mean much to him and that he'll do anything for art, even if that means blowing up his own Rolls Royce Silver Shadow car he got just few months earlier. Check out the BTS video explaining the idea behind it, and of course the final slow-mo video.

The video was shot on RED Dragon cameras that can shoot 100-150fps slow-motion videos at 5K and 6K resolutions. In addition, Tyler used few still cameras to capture the explosion and the aftermath for his upcoming gallery showing in London. 

The Silver Shadow series will be on display starting October 18th at the Imitate Modern gallery in London. A huge thanks to everyone at Red camera for giving me the new Dragon for this. I have to give another huge thanks to the guys at Panavision for outfitting me with a custom Primo lens for my still camera, I met with them and we have a few great ideas this was our first test together and the result was something even better then I could have imagined, when you see the quality on the large prints you can really see the magic of Panavision and the unique look it created for me." - Tyler Shields

Check out Tyler's behind the scenes video below:

[Via ISO1200]

Noam Galai's picture

Noam Galai is a Senior Fstoppers Staff Writer and NYC Celebrity / Entertainment photographer. Noam's work appears on publications such as Time Magazine, New York Times, People Magazine, Vogue and Us Weekly on a daily basis.

Log in or register to post comments
19 Comments

To ruin such a car for the sake of "art" nearly makes me cry. Not in a good way...

Blah Blah Blah...why? Pointless. Want to make a point? Do it with a £200,0000 Roller. Would rather see Lee C's egg cracking!

that guy is an idiot. blow up a rolls for art ? was art lacking a rolls being blown up ? if it was a toyota would it even be a article ? i'm with Lee, no art here. i would also like to see the egg/hammer film. and i don't know what's worse, the alligator that bit the purse or the moron that would spend 100k on a purse in the first place. i'm gonna make a duct tape wallet and throw it on my grill (in slow motion of corse).

It wasn't even a real designer purse. It was a knock off he probably got on Canal Street for $30.

Slow mo makes everything seem so much more epic.

The slow mo was overdone. Had he speed ramped some parts it would've looked much better. You know whats going to happen in the video, so to slow mo the whole thing I just sat there wanting to fast forward to get to the point.

He's trying way too hard to appear eccentric. The fact he had to tell the cop "im just a crazy guy" for offroading it.... he's posturing and its sad.

this is definitely not Art, just another rich-wanker whom daddy's account's bigger than his eggs...

Yeah 1 minute 20 seconds of a guy walking is definitely "art".

I haven't seen anything this stupid since art school. I've never been impressed by shock value, it's a sign of immaturity. Grew out of it when I was 15 years old.

Excentric? Ridiculous? Maybe. However, the cinematography is good. Use of natural light, good. Soundtrack, fits. Slowmo? Works out. I even like the overexposure of the full frontal blast. Hate to compare, but this gave me more thrill than 50 MBB (Michael Bay Blast).

Everything for the sake of Art, ehhh. if this Rolls is real, it means the cost is $$$$$$$. If i were him, i would have bought the license of all the courses in Fstoppers for example and make it free for the members of this beautiful community and for the public. This is called the Art of kind. Or make a competition for the talented photographers with a decent prizes. Not wasting money like that. He could've replicate the outer shell of the car and blow it away and this is called smartness. Maybe he was depressed guys after the purse act :).

God I wish I could understand why this guy is followed.

How sad it may seem, it follows completely this hipster trend of destroying valuable things. We're living in high times of capitalism, kids grow up in luxury (branded clothes that cost more than my grandfathers monthly paycheck, a new smartphone every year, ... )
This generation has no dreams anymore, they have become so cynical that destruction fits perfectly in their vision. So basically you can say it's art because art is a reflection of life.

This is art ? Somebody is obviously WAISTING MONEY on nonsense, WAIT! This guy is in politics right ? Wanna get really crazy and artsy ? Next time get into the car with a Go pro !

The real art in this is the artist who make people believe this is art, and somebody will probably pay him well while doing it. That is an art. The rest of us sees a guy who blew up a white car in the desert.

The art project is for his "Indulgence" series and it is literally about taking things that people value and obsess over (Wealth, riches, collectibles, beauty, etc) and literally destroying it. That's a bigger concept that most people can comprehend. The "art" isn't so much the exposure, frame rate, or anything technical - but the idea. Film/Digital whatever doesn't matter... it's just a tool and a medium. Too many photogs/cinematographers obsess over the contrast sharpness etc yet every image they create is already out there with 1,000 replicas.

He's the one making massive amounts of money and creating a name for himself because he's willing to do something as crazy as destroying extremely valuable things... things that some people (they are out there) would kill for, simply to expose someone to the type of person that you possibly are: The person who is sad because they desire it so much (and maybe obsess over the materialistic), or the person who is happy to watch things burn because they despise the obsession in the first place.

Pointless! It's not art just a bit of mediocre footage of an idiot blowing up an old banger of a RR. If yiu want to be decadent them blow up a decent car.