The Car Shoot

At the Hallmark Institute of Photography student open house on April 26, 2009, all eyes were on the studio car shoot — an impressive set that was fully assembled and shot by a group of students who were interested in learning more about automobile photography. This specialty in the industry requires many of the techniques used in other areas of commercial photography, but on a much larger scale.

The basis of lighting a car is reflective photography, a technique that involves controlling everything that is reflected into the object from the viewpoint of the camera. Student Chris Myska had the idea for the car shoot and approached instructor Dick D'Alessandro with a group of his fellow classmates to formulate a plan of action.

After several weeks of researching methods of construction for the car shoot, student Bryan Bayutas suggested using a giant, suspended reflector to light a Lexus IS-F and accent its lines and sleek appearance. The idea came to Bryan after viewing a set by San Diego commercial photographer Nick Nacca during spring break in which a giant flat was hung in the air. Bryan concluded that Nick's set design would be the way to go because it was inexpensive and would effectively capture the long, evenly-toned lines running along the car. The team of students agreed with his suggestion and started construction on a reflector that was to be made almost entirely out of PVC and seamless white paper.

Students utilized the expertise of professional photographer Al Satterwhite who the students were lucky enough to have met a week prior when Al came to the school as a guest lecturer. When contacted by the students, Al gave them invaluable tips on how to achieve their desired look which they took and implemented into their plans for the shoot.

Construction on the reflector began the Thursday before the open house. The first step was to create the framework by putting the PVC rig together and tying up the hang points. Once the frame was complete, climbing ropes and carabiners were used to hoist the 16' x 30' reflector above the car, just outside of the camera frame. Because of the car's size, the reflector had to be placed as close as possible to the Lexus so that it covered the entire length of the car. The seamless paper was then laid out beneath the reflector and taped together before the framework was lowered and both pieces were joined with duct tape. Once the finished piece was raised and the ropes were secure, the team was ready to position the car and set up the lights.

On Friday, the students set up some black muslin to reduce reflections and began a general placement of lights while they waited for the car to arrive. At around 3:30 that afternoon, the Lexus was put into place and Chris, Ashley and Bryan were able to fine-tune the layout and capture test shots of the automobile — a process that involved lighting and individually photographing each tire as separate exposures. Bryan later brought these into the main image and composited using Photoshop.

To achieve the slick lighting seen in many print and television ads, the students used eight Profoto Acute 4D strobe lights connected to Profoto Acute 4 2400-watt power packs. Each strobe head was approximately two feet off the ground and aimed up at the reflector all around the car. To keep the strobe lights from being reflected in the car's surface, barn doors were attached to each strobe reflector.

On Saturday morning, the team was ready to put the finishing touches on their display. They cleaned up the set, stowed the unused equipment and got a shot of the car printed, matted and framed for the following day's open house event where it was viewed by family, friends and alumni of the school.

Students assisting in this project (in alphabetical order): Randy Ahart, Michael Curry, Darryl Dobbs, Ashley Heyl, Fallon Hutto, Tiff Marcy, Leland Marshall, Dan Menard, Chris Pino, Mandi Rowland, AJ Smollen, John Stevenson, Mike Thomas, TJ Turner, and everyone lending a hand for even a few minutes. Thanks also to Hallmark staff members.