RIDES Magazine dropped their newest issue this week at SEMA in Las Vegas. This is typically their biggest issue of the year, and it was a great opportunity to be able to shoot the cover for a second time. Below are images from a few other interior features.

Here’s a quick look at some recent work for Toyota of the 2012 Yaris. Details were shot in studio and the exteriors were shot on location around Los Angeles. Check out Toyota’s Pressroom for the rest of the images.

Back in May I had the good opportunity to work with some buddies at Monster World Rally Team to photograph Ken Block for the new issue of Dub Magazine. Should be hitting the news stands in a week or so, do check out the feature if you run into it!

When RIDES Magazine made a shift into covering the custom motorcycle culture, I had the opportunity to shoot an editorial on Rare Breed, a well respected motorcycle club with sectors here in Los Angeles and Atlanta. Since then, RIDES has teamed up with Harley Davidson to produce a video on the motorcycle club for Iron Elite, which “honors the camaraderie and influence of African American riders within our family,” and I had the honor of H-D running my portrait of the the club alongside the video on their website.

Check out the video on Harley Davidson’s site if you have a minute!

Been meaning to do an image build up on this for a while, pretty happy to finally get around to it. Just about a year ago we shot a cover for Project Car Magazine that got canned, and last minute they decided they wanted to replace it with their project AE86 doing some “urban drifting.” On a whim, I did some quick location scouting outside of Downtown LA and excitedly found this spot, which worked nicely. In retrospect, there are a couple things I may have done differently. All said and done, though, I knew things didn’t have to be 100% perfect or believable as the image would be cropped and plastered with a magazine title and a bunch of text. In no particular order, here’s a breakdown and build up of the shot:

This is the base plate for the image, straight out of the camera. All elements were shot on tripod, except for the motion plate for the ground and foreground. We’ll touch base on that in a minute.

Added some adjustment layers to get the color palette where I wanted, and added some slight basic motion blur to the background to help smooth the transition from the foreground motion.

As you can see above, the dark, flat color of the paint needed a separate exposure. I opened up the exposure a stop or so, and threw some light on the front end.

The last thing captured was the motion plate. After taking the camera off the tripod, I stayed in roughly the same position and did some pan blurs to capture natural motion. This method is by no means anywhere close to technically proper, but it worked close enough for the image. The wheels were spun with the car jacked up, but I opted to use a radial blurred front wheel from photoshop, as it was a better middle ground between static and motion.

Lastly, some smoke was painted in. This is typically the hardest thing to make decently realistic. I forget exactly what I did here, but I’m going to guess it was a mix of painting and compositing real smoke from other random images. For the hell of it, I added some gravel kick up with the help of some random brushes buried deep in the brush palette.

Final adjustments were made to all layers. Some vignetting, color balancing, etc.

Final cover layout that went to print.

Feel free to leave any questions you may have by commenting below!

Finally getting caught up on my RSS feeds from the day and ran into an iPhone snap of mine featured on today’s LA Times Southern California Moments blog! I really enjoy the daily post, as well as the Flickr group, so it’s pretty humbling take day 105/365 for the year.

For those interested – Photoshop Express was used to crop and adjust the exposure, and Camera Bag was used to apply a couple filters.

Check out the rest of the gallery if you have a minute.

In honor of Japan, its people, and anyone affected by the crisis, I want to offer up this desktop wallpaper. Download the hi-res HERE.

Unfortunately, no sooner than a year or so later, I’m again selling prints with 100% of proceeds going to American Red Cross and Unicef USA in efforts to help with relief in Japan. Please read the details below if interested, every little bit helps!

• Donation per print is $25. $40 for any two. $50 for any three.
• Prints are bordered and vary in size, but are all on 11×14 heavy weight matte paper.
• Donations include shipping worldwide.
• Preferred payment is through Paypal*, payable to scott at dukesphotography dot com. When checking out, please note which print(s) you’d like to purchase. Checks are accepted if needed. Please contact via email with any questions.
• Availability – the pile is random, with both automotive and personal work. If interested in any specific images from my website or flickr, please contact via email for availability.

Thanks ahead, and God bless!

*Unfortunately no shopping cart/store set up at the moment, so please follow the link above to Paypal and login to your account to complete the transaction. Apologies for any inconveniences!

I recently updated the second portfolio with these new mountain biking images. Shot a couple weeks ago on location in Los Angeles. Lighting used were a few Alien Bee 800s, powered by Vagabond II packs. A fair bit of retouching done to all three, which I’ll soon touch base on in a more detailed post.

Just before the holiday season last year I had the humbling opportunity to be part of an article on automotive photography for the Ukrainian edition of Photographer Magazine. We touched based on all sorts of things from gear, pre to post production, retouching, and a bunch more I can’t recall. CLICK HERE to download the PDF. The interview pre-translation is below. Big ups to Webb Bland for being part of the article as well.

How did you get into photographing cars? Which of the two passions – cars and photography is prevailing for you?

By my late teenage years I was pretty big into cars as a hobby. It seemed to consume a lot of my time. Being into photography already, I naturally started gaining interest in taking photos of cars. Through time, I met some people, assisted a few photographers, and eventually some jobs opportunities started coming along. Eventually, things all came together and I was fortunate enough to make shooting cars the full time job.

At the end of the day, photography will always prevail for me. Whether I’m shooting cars, sports, or my girlfriend’s dog (!), what matters is that I’m photographing the things I love.

If you were asked about a single most crucial advice for beginners in car photography, what would it be?

A car is just another subject. No matter what you’re shooting, you want to tell its story. Each car has its own, and it’s crucial that we as photographers tell it within that single frame.

First thing amateur photographers have to learn to become advanced car photography specialists is…?

I think it’s important to understand that like most things in life, it’s a lot of work before play. It’s a blessing to do what you love for a living, but at the end of the day it’s a job. You have to be willing and ready to roll with the punches.

Is it difficult to shoot cars? Where hides the trap?

Cars can be tough to shoot for sure. They’re big pieces of metal and glass. Controlling reflections are a common issue, whether due to a car’s color or location surroundings that are out of your control. Another issue can be shooting without a permit. Depending where you find yourself shooting, it can be hard to go unnoticed.

What kind of camera(s) are you using to photograph them? And what kind of camera you think would be ideal for this kind of photography and why?

For smaller scale jobs, say editorial, I’m shooting with Canon DSLR’s. For larger advertising jobs, the file specifications are much greater, so medium format digital is needed a lot.

Now your most usable lenses are…? Please share your thoughts about lens efficiency in car photography. Which ones – zooms or primes, wide-angle or telephoto work best to deliver your concept?

I think it all depends on what you’re shooting, and more so what your style is. Stereotypically, you’ll find motorsports photographers with super long and fast lenses, as they have to shoot from far distances and under whatever light they find themselves in. Shooting a static car with strobe lighting, a fast lens isn’t of concern. The lens I shoot with the absolute most is Canon’s 24-105mm IS F4L. It’s a great all around lens.

Are you benefiting from use of special filters? If yes, then which filters, how often, and for what kind of artistic effects?

The filters I use the most are circular polarizers, ND’s, and ND grads. The CP helps control reflections on the cars, as well as bring out contrast in skies. The ND’s help for long exposures when using a rig, and the ND grad is great for bring down the exposure in specific parts of the frame.

Do you work mainly outdoors? And where do you like it better?

I mostly shoot outdoors on location. I enjoy traveling, so shooting on location is one good way to see new places, whether near or far. But shooting in a studio is fine too, it all depends on what the job calls for.

Let’s start from the outdoors. You prefer natural light, or is it absolutely necessary to make use of additional light bulbs, soft-boxes, reflectors, diffusers, scrims, shades etc.?

There are times that I’ll shoot all natural light, whether it be out of necessity or personal preference. But typically, I’ll usually use additional strobe lighting, as it’s more of my style. I always shoot hard light, just using the reflective dishes on each light.

Is it easy to work with natural light alone, and what kind of outdoor light tone, intensity etc. better suits your professional needs?

Shooting with only natural light can be great at times, and can be a disaster at others. Personally, I really like mid to early afternoon high sun light, with whispy clouds.

On images shot outside which artistic purposes normally does the natural light has to fulfill?

For me, natural or available light is needed to light the environment. I will often use the sun as a light source for the car as well, whether it be a main or a fill.

Light reflections on all the automobiles’ polished surfaces; do you always need to get rid of them? Or there’re certain cases when you can neglect them, use them to add artistic flair?

I have a love/hate relationship with reflections. Sometimes they are needed to anchor the car in the environment, and sometimes a car can take to light so nicely that you don’t want anything working against the body lines. Typically metallic paints like taking in light, while flat or darker paints like reflecting light.

You moving cars – cars in motion, they look really gorgeous. First thing I notice is the smoothness of the blurred background which actually gives the sense of motion. How do you achieve it ?

Motion images can be captured in a number of ways, whether it be car to car, pan blur, using a rig, or putting something together in photoshop. For me it all depends on the job, but a common one used is the rig – attaching the camera to the car. With the camera and car moving on the same exact path, combined with a long exposure, the car remains perfectly sharp while the background becomes super blurred, putting the car in motion.

What speed should a car drive with to achieve a true sense of motion? And what shutter speed do you use to freeze the car whilst softening the background?

The speed of the car and shutter speed all depends on the method of capture. When doing car to car or pan blurs, I typically like the car going around 30-40mph, while shooting around 1/40-1/80th of a second. When doing a rig photo, the car is typically completely off and in neutral, and pushed by hand very slowly. The shutter speed needs to be long to pick up a sense of motion, so depending on the ambient light, the exposure can be anywhere from 1-2-3 seconds and longer.

Judging from all those perspectives you often photograph moving cars positioning yourself in another car. How many exposures do you make during such photo-session and how do you manage to judge if you have even a single satisfactory result?

The number of exposures all depends on the job. Sometimes you just shoot as much as you possibly can, other times you know when you have that image you’re looking for and it’s on to the next.

Is it really hazardous, how do you insure yourself from falling?

There are certain times you’ll find yourself in compromising situations, whether it be shooting from a ladder or cherry pick, or climbing up a mountain side for that bird’s eye angle. It’s just a matter of being heads up and not doing anything dumb!

What kind of lenses do you use when shooting cars “on the move”?

There aren’t any specifics lenses I use when it comes to static verses motion images. It really comes down to what is needed for the specific image. But if anything, if I had to generalize, I’ll shoot wider on rig photos and car to car, and longer on pan blurs.

Now the Photoshop question. Do you edit the above mentioned pictures with the help of it? To what degree and how much of the authenticity do you leave?

The amount of retouching is also specific to the image or job. Sometimes things will come together very well on location, and an image won’t need that much retouching. But other images can be specifically planned out ahead of time, with a lot of retouching in mind. I don’t like to push things too far, as I like my images to be somewhat realistic. Some will argue otherwise, but subjectivity is the beauty of art.

What kind of Photoshop amendments do such photos require normally?

Typically, when shooting with retouching in mind, I’ll shoot a handful of exposures to be stacked together for the final image. A photoshop file will generally be broken down in layers for the car, foreground, background, sky, etc. so I can individually work on each.

And lighting equipment, do you rent it for a particular project?

I have my own lighting (strobe, fluorescent) that I typically use, but will definitely rent other lighting as needed. All depends what the job calls for.

How many light sources (reflectors, soft-boxes etc.) do you normally use? Maybe you could describe a couple of your favorite lighting schemes?

I generally use anywhere from 1 to 4 lights when shooting on location, but can be a lot more if in the studio. It depends if I’m aiming to capture as much as possible in 1 exposure, or whether I have the ability to move lights around and put things together in post production.

Lately, I’ve taken a liking to using the sun as a light source. One of my favorites is having the sun rake across the shooting side of the car as the main light and filling in the part in shadow with strobe. It maintains an overall “natural” look, but lends nicely to my style.

And once more to post-processing. How long does it take to finish a single photo and apart from contrast, saturation and sharpening boost what typical adjustments do you use?

Time spent on retouching can vary greatly. If a client has a quick turnaround, I’ll hammer through to make sure they deadline is met. On the other hand, if I’m working on personal work, it can be upwards of 1 to 2 weeks, obviously working at my pace, before the image is done.

I find myself using a lot of layer adjustments and blending modes in photoshop. Selective color and channel mixer are a couple of my favorites, as well as overlay and soft light for blending modes. There are a lot of nice tools in Abode Camera Raw as well, before opening the processed file in photoshop.

Now that question must be one of your major concerns but is the competition in the field you’re working that big? Do you feel it’s getting harder to find and win over clients nowadays than it used to be a couple of years ago?

There’s definitely a lot of competition in automotive photography, and I think that’s a good thing. People are always coming up with fresh ideas and styles, it keeps things interesting. It’s all relative I think. It’s just like music, sports, acting, etc. Humans are competitive by nature, and it’s a vital factor to keep things moving in a forward direction.

Are there any special rules of doing business in the field of automobile photography, trading secrets (not the most secret ones) that you could probably share them with our readers?

Personally, I don’t think there are any special rules pertaining to automotive photography. Take the automotive out, and you still have photography. If you’re thinking of making a run at it, just dive in. Inform yourself of who’s out there, find photographers you can draw inspiration from. Assisting a photographer you like is always a good route to learning the ropes, from a creative and business stand point. The internet is also a never ending source of information, from other discussion forums, to blogs, to social networks. Just know what you want and go after it. Not to beat a dead horse, but do what you love. Doing it for a living is the icing on the cake.