Night Shoot

My first photo shoot involved a group of friends I met through being involved with the car community. They are all under 25 and could easily be stereotyped as 'boy racers'. They all have full time jobs involving some sort of engineering, mechanical or electrical work and they have a lot of time and money invested into there cars. I wanted to capture a few photos of them with there cars to illustrate the point that they have a large interest in modified cars but I also wanted to keep the photos interesting.

I decided to do a range of shots of each car as well as some group shots with the cars and after reviewing my images I really prefer the images with the lads in them as people can make the link between young lads and modified cars.

I used a long exposure and off camera lighting to paint in the cars and the models so that I could show only what I wanted. I didn't want the location to distract from the images themselves so I chose to shoot in a dark forest so there was little distraction.

This image was inspired by the work of Chris Frear who I've been following on flickr for a year or so. He focuses on creating portraits of people in there workplace and his work is very different to most portrait photographers. He likes to include clues about the subject by photographing them in there everyday environments, more often than not at work.

I decided to have each person stand by there car and gave them absolute freedom to pose how they wanted and I'm really happy with the results. They all look relaxed and took the shoot seriously. The stereotype of 'boy racer' is young lads under 21 getting there first car and doing stupid things with it because they are not mature enough to realise the dangers. This stereotype couldn't be further from the truth, most people in the modified car community take pride in there car and there driving, maybe more so than 'mature adults'. I think there's an element of this in the photo below, each person is taking pride in the car they've built and invested in and I feel they are communicating with the camera as though they are tired of being judged.

This image was the final shot of the night and was just for a little fun to show it's not all serious and at the end of the day the modified community is all about doing something you enjoy and sharing that with friends and people who are also passionate about motorsport.