Time To Prepare Your Car For A Professional Photoshoot
Car Photoshoot preperation.
So you have booked a professional car photoshoot — exciting! But before the camera comes out, there is one job that falls entirely to you, and it is the single most important factor in how good your final photos will look. That job is preparation. Because I have photographed hundreds of cars over the years, I can tell you with complete confidence that a properly prepared car always produces dramatically better results. So in this post, I am going to walk you through exactly how to prepare your car for a photoshoot, based on what I see working — and not working — on real shoots.
Get Your Car Professionally Detailed
If you take just one thing away from this article, let it be this — get your car professionally detailed before the shoot. Because a quick wash simply does not cut it, the difference between a detailed car and a quickly cleaned one is enormous once the camera comes out.
On the exterior, the car should be washed, the paint decontaminated, and then properly polished and waxed. Furthermore, the wheels are often completely neglected. So make sure they are degreased, decontaminated, cleaned, and polished too. On the interior, the carpets should be shampooed, the leather cleaned and conditioned, and any stains removed.
In short, the car should look its absolute best before I ever press the shutter.
Why Paintwork Matters So Much
Here is something most people do not realise — the camera picks up imperfections that you might not even notice with the naked eye. Because of this, water spots and paint swirls show up in photos every single time, particularly in the close up detail shots.
Black cars are the absolute worst for this. Water stains are difficult to remove and they really stand out in images. As a result, a proper paint correction is the best way to deal with these issues before a shoot.
Furthermore, kerb rash on the wheels — that scraping damage on the edge of the rim — shows up clearly in photos too. So getting your paint and wheels properly sorted makes a huge difference to the final result.
Don’t Underestimate The Interior
The interior is where a lot of hidden problems live. Dust is a particularly huge issue, and here is why — when the flash hits dust, it reflects the light straight back into the lens like tiny sparkling lights. As a result, the dust really stands out and it costs me a significant amount of time to edit out in post production.
This is exactly where proper detailing matters rather than just a quick wipe down. Because a professional detailer will get right into all of the little gaps to remove debris and dust, the interior shots come out far cleaner. Furthermore, fingerprints and smudges really show up on piano black trim and on digital displays. So it is really important that these surfaces are properly cleaned for the cleanest possible interior photos.
Timing Is Everything
Now let’s talk about when to detail your car. Ideally, the detail should be completed just before the shoot. Because dust builds up surprisingly quickly, every time you open and close a car door you are sucking in dust which then settles on all of the surfaces inside your car.
Furthermore, you should avoid driving the car any significant distance after it has been detailed. Even driving just a few kilometres down the road will make a difference. Because brake dust builds up very fast, and because you risk rain, puddles, and road grime, it is best to keep driving to an absolute minimum between the detail and the shoot. To make this easier, I generally try to scout locations that are not too far from where the car is based.
Leave The Creative Side To Me
Here is the good news — once your car is prepared, the hard creative work is my job. Because most of my clients are happy to simply show up with a beautifully presented car and let me do my thing, there is very little else you need to worry about.
Things like mirrors, windows, and ride height can all be adjusted on the day as needed. Number plates are a non issue — I usually just remove them in Photoshop afterwards. And you really cannot overdo the preparation. Even if there is a touch too much tyre shine, it is usually just a quick wipe to fix any excess.
The Real Craft — Positioning And Perspective
While your job is preparation, my job is everything creative — and a huge part of that is positioning. When I shoot a car, I am constantly taking into account composition, the angle of the light, reflections on the paint, and what is in the background. Furthermore, I am thinking about exposure and even how I plan to edit the photo later, because that can dictate how I expose the shot in the first place.
On a typical shoot I will take 200 to 300 photos to cover every possible angle. For example, I have a favourite location with the Sydney skyline in the background and a beautiful frangipani tree to one side. Getting the car lined up perfectly to frame that shot often takes several adjustments — not just to the car’s position, but to where I stand as well.
Perspective is also hugely important. Because shooting close to the car with a wide angle lens looks completely different to shooting from further away with a long lens, I will often shoot both. The car might fill the same amount of the frame in each image, but they will look very different.
Why It All Pays Off
So is all this preparation really worth it? 100% yes. Because a properly prepared car saves time on the day that would otherwise be spent fussing over something getting in the way of a great photo, and it saves a significant amount of time in post production too.
I will always go the extra mile to make your car look amazing. However, removing dust and water spots one by one in Photoshop takes a lot of extra time — and because I do not charge extra for editing, the better prepared your car is, the more time I can spend making your images truly spectacular rather than just cleaning them up.
Ready To Book Your Shoot?
At the end of the day, the most important job of professional car photography is to make your car stand out amongst the thousands of others out there — many of which are listed with just a handful of terrible photos. So when your car turns up perfectly prepared, we can create images that genuinely turn heads and get results.
If you are ready to show off your car at its absolute best, take a look at our photography packages and pricing or go ahead and book your shoot today. I would love to help you make your car the one that everybody stops to look at.
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