Platinum Motor Sports for RIDES: image build up

Above is the opening spread for a feature on Platinum Motor Sports in the new issue of RIDES, shot last month on location at some big fancy place in the 90210. Follow the jump for the break down and build up of the image!

We didn’t get going until the sun had already set behind “The Hills,” which didn’t leave us with much daylight to work with. Being that the opener has to be the money shot, we hammered away on it first, worrying about the rest later.

This is the background plate for the image. We threw a couple strobes in the garage to make things a bit more lively. That also bounced some light back onto the top of each car, giving a more natural base for later stacking up the strobe exposures.

This is the retouched the background. Brought out some detail, played with the color palette a bit, and dropped in the highlights on the ground for each car.

Being in a time crunch, we went with a ‘run and gun’ method of lighting instead of trying to evenly light each car in one take. The idea here was to later stack and blend each exposure in post.

Strobed exposures for the Mercedes.

Strobed exposures for the Lamborghini.

Strobed exposures for the Bentley.

Strobed exposures for the Porsche.

Final layout for print.