Relentlessly plowing through its 345 mile trek on unpaved, dirt roads, the industrious Chevrolet Camaro transports a young sapling through the desert, delivering new life to the sun-scorched earth. It’s once vibrant coat of blue paint eaten away by countless miles driven through unforgiving terrain, this reliable workhorse never sleeps.
This vision came to life in the Viewpoint School photography studio with the help of Charlie Sitzer (Viewpoint School Photography Teacher), Gregory Schare (VP 2019), and Sammy Shang (VP 2020).
A coat of paint stripper allowed me to selectively chisel away some of the paint, giving the 1:24 scale Camaro a weathered appearance by exposing its bare metal frame. We then applied mud paste to the car and ground, which was a floor mat textured like asphalt, to give the appearance of a dirty car on a forgotten road. Once we superglued the rusted chain to the back of the car and to the bucket containing the model tree, we proceeded to use fishing line to string up certain sections of the chain to a C-stand to give the appearance of motion in the chain. Interestingly, the silhouette of a person in the car is actually the top part of a model tree that we placed in the cabin.
We shot the images using a high megapixel Nikon D810 with the tack sharp Nikkor 200 f4 lens. Edited using Adobe lightroom and photoshop. Lit using Astra litepanels.
The printed background image is a composite from all my own photographs shot on a Canon 6D Mark II. The sky was taken at a turnoff on Kanan Road, and the sunlit hill was taken in Oak Park.
