Well I found myself reading up on taking photos and decided to go use some of the tips myself on taking photos. Found it pretty easy to get some good shots once I followed some of the guidelines.

I spent many times before this trying to get a good picture for the calender but never got a good shot because I didn't understand anything about cameras and just drove my car to nearest scenic route at w/e time of day and snapped some shots. Now that I've gotten a bit better I hope to have my car pic in the calender this year.


Ground view, car centered, and no people, cars or anything that is distracting in the background.


This is a very similar angle, the reason for the passenger side was to avoid the hood gap and had to re-take these pictures many times in order to get the dent near back wheel well to look like a reflection.

Do I wish for some of these to be calender worthy? I hope so, but with how picky people can be who knows. I believe some of these photos follow every guideline except size in which I have the original copies that are much larger and higher quality.

My favorite one is below this text. The reason this is my favorite is because the contrast the car has in this photo is great. The window tint is dark which I tried so in so many shots to get but couldn't perfect (most seemed like i had lighter tint on front windows). Also nothing distracting is really there, there is a light however it isn't close enough to the car to distract the eye. My eye stays focused on the car itself and not the background, but the background brings out the vehicle and also makes it very interesting.




This one seems as if it has to much exposure or something. Also the window tint doesn't seem dark at all because of light behind it. Seems almost as if my front windows were down, which they are not in that photo.






Experimenting with flash..


There may be too much going on in the background on this one, but it seems like a cool shot personally to me, what do you guys think?

I dont really like the parking garage, but that picture with the big wheel looks sick!

You should go off of Hwy 3 toward West st.paul and find some open field or something...

You should dish out that mear 33$ for some nice clear corners to set it off.

Should I also go take some shots of my car in the grass and make it look like its been abandoned too?

PWNED! Parking garages are bad ass for pics, looks good Ben.

Well youve done a few shoots in that location, maybe switch it up?

None of those locations have been for the calender so far so why does it matter? I say if the shot looks good why drive so far away? I mean obviously you didn't drive so far as it seems your potential calender pics were taken right in your own backyard.

What I'm really trying to say is Jorgs, is not that it matters how far yah travel for a photo its the final product and that it seems like your photos are either lacking the knowledge or effort because to me it looks like you went and just parked your car in your backyard ( I could be wrong on this) and took a couple shots with not even thinking about the picture and how it would turn out.

Mine are taken 20 minutes from my house, we have NO good places around here to take good shots, so i drive for mine. And i think its worth it.

But i can see why Ben likes this spot, not to far away, and it looks really good for pics, parking garages always look good for pics, im not one for "backyard" pics with just grass and trees, when do you see a car driving around in the grass?

It was just a suggestion, Jeez

I drove probably 7 minutes to get there.

I know that, and I tried several other locations but did not like how they looked. One was way too much overexposure and the other had way to many lines/cracks in the concrete which made for a very distracting background.

Lookin good.

Just a couple of tips: Avoid back lighting and flashes for that kind of shot. A basic rule from portrait photography is to have your lighting source behind you. Avoiding a flash will help avoid glare/reflections by using available light, which should be more diffused than a flash.

Also, what kind of camera are you using? There are things that can be done with even a basic SLR that would make a world of difference even if the lighting is a bit poor in your location

I'm not using a SLR, just a basic point and shoot digital camera.

Ben, you need one of the SLP spoilers. lol I say an SLP gen 2 is in line to complete your car other than lowering springs!

Those are some pretty good looking shots and there's nothing wrong with the parking garage. Check around tho and see if you can find someplace similar that has access to a water hose and wet the area down...some slight reflection of the car and light will bounce off the water and make the car look even more slick and shiny.
I travelled as far as two hours away from home scouting locations to shoot my car for last years calendar. Thats the great part about digital, you can shoot tons and throw out what you dont like, unlike film which would cost a killing for the same.
Check the settings on your point and shoot, you may be able to delay or even cut the flash off altogether to play with light effects, but I do agree with the previous post that the general rule is keep your light source behind you...unless you want the backlight to make the car darker or silhouette.

I thought about the water reflection, i may bring a bucket or something with water and try that, idk. As for the backlight, there must be a misconception here because for most of these shots the car was in the middle of the parking garage and light was all around the vehicle... There is no dominating light source.

Sweet pictures. I always thought those taillights were odd-looking but they are pretty sick.