Skating with the Vdubb Gti

One of my buddies had a 97' GTI VR6 and wanted a quick shoot with it.
This was definitely the best shot out of the group. Let me know what you think.
C&C appreciated!

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Does nothing for me. Busy background, busy subject.

snails wrote in post #11849318
Does nothing for me. Busy background, busy subject.

Busy background because of the house? I agree...I would have liked to shoot elsewhere but for some reason he wanted his house in the background. And how is the subject busy? The point of the shot was to have him skating in front of his car. Thanks for the input though.

Busy background. Needs a much faster shutter speed as your friend is blurred from motion. The car is cut off. Something is sticking into the photo on the middle left by the skateboard. I'd prefer that he be in the frame, not just the legs/board. Also, the car's wheels should be pointed either straight ahead or all the way over in the opposite direction and the reflections in the paint are distracting.

I'd try again at a different location.

I should have put a more detailed post for the original thread starter. I pulled this picture out from deep within my computer. It was taken back in 2009 before I really got into photography. This was before I even knew what shutter speeds and apertures and ISOs were haha. I agree with all the listed stuff above but there is nothing I can do about anything you listed since I pulled this picture out from a long time ago. If I was to re shoot this today, trust me it would be somewhere desolate where there is nothing for reflections to capture...and I would have changed a lot of things. I just thought it was a really neat shot that I found. When this picture was taken I was definitely not concerned with getting him in the frame or all that little nit picky stuff you guys listed above. Thanks for the C&C anyways though!

I'm not a fan, sorry...most of the skater is chopped off, the side of the car is chopped off, the wheels are turned the wrong way and I HATE it when people make their cars look lower by having them angled down from a driveway onto a street.

Nice GTI, though, I love the Jetta front end and the smoked E-codes

Good timing.

They're just trying to help. See the links in my Sig, and...

LowriderS10 wrote in post #11851591
I'm not a fan, sorry...most of the skater is chopped off, the side of the car is chopped off, the wheels are turned the wrong way and I HATE it when people make their cars look lower by having them angled down from a driveway onto a street.

Nice GTI, though, I love the Jetta front end and the smoked E-codes

Thank you for the comments about the car itself. He was not trying to make it look lower by parking like that (even though it did just that). Also I did not have the lenses at the time to be able to capture the whole body of the person. Like I mentioned above, this was taken before I learned everything I currently know about photography. Thanks for all the comments by the way. Oh and a side note, I normally shoot lanscape and cityscape photography so I am highly uneducated with all the proper setup details for shooting cars so go easy haha. Little did I know that posting in the transportation thread I was gonna get all the regulars who look at car shots every day. My shot is far subpar to those who visit this sections of POTN.

Dirty Murd wrote in post #11849411
Busy background because of the house? I agree...I would have liked to shoot elsewhere but for some reason he wanted his house in the background. And how is the subject busy? The point of the shot was to have him skating in front of his car. Thanks for the input though.

You have two subjects that are not alike, doing different things.

i agree with most of what everyone says. but i like the concept. i think in the right enviroment with the right lighting mixing these two would be pretty cool. i think you should push forward with it.

I thought most people parked like that to give the illusion of being lower? VDubs in particular. It looks like an attempt at a meme or something, with the black border.

attempt at a meme? What's a meme? And like i mentioned previously, it might seem like we parked like that to make it look lower but that was not the intention. We just happened to park it down his driveway.

If you're going to do this, you need to learn how to time Skate photography. The car will stay still, that's a given, but you've timed the Skateboarding all wrong. It's also fair obvious that it's not a land. And you really should get the whole Skater in shot. Go read any skateboard magazine to find out timing, it's generally around the 'catch'. As in, say if you were shooting a kickflip, you'd time it to right when they're about to catch it with they're (hopefully) back foot.

you cut the car with the right side of the frame... that's like taking a picture of someone's face but cutting off their ear and a slight part of the cheek -- it looks like a mistake.


Were you to try this again, here is what I would do.
1. Setup the car with something much less distracting in the background -- a cityscape if you're near one, a setting sun maybe, whatever.
2. Position yourself a fair distance away from the car, lying on the ground. I'd guess somewhere in the 25' away range, depending on the width of your lens. The lower, the better.
3. Position the camera in "portrait" position, side-camera. Put the car in the bottom of the frame, centered.
4. Have your skater do the trick in front of the car, between the car and you. If you got low enough and he jumps high enough, it will sort of look like he's jumping "over" the car. If you have a wide enough lens, you should be able to get his whole body in frame.

If you can predict with reasonable accuracy how far your friend will be when he does the trick, set your camera to manual focus and set it to that distance. That way he is in focus and the car is slightly out of focus.

Keep the shutter speed around 1/640 if you can, to keep the motion blur to reasonable speeds. Adjust aperture to flavor.

Chippy569 wrote in post #11860659
you cut the car with the right side of the frame... that's like taking a picture of someone's face but cutting off their ear and a slight part of the cheek -- it looks like a mistake.


Were you to try this again, here is what I would do.
1. Setup the car with something much less distracting in the background -- a cityscape if you're near one, a setting sun maybe, whatever.
2. Position yourself a fair distance away from the car, lying on the ground. I'd guess somewhere in the 25' away range, depending on the width of your lens. The lower, the better.
3. Position the camera in "portrait" position, side-camera. Put the car in the bottom of the frame, centered.
4. Have your skater do the trick in front of the car, between the car and you. If you got low enough and he jumps high enough, it will sort of look like he's jumping "over" the car. If you have a wide enough lens, you should be able to get his whole body in frame.

If you can predict with reasonable accuracy how far your friend will be when he does the trick, set your camera to manual focus and set it to that distance. That way he is in focus and the car is slightly out of focus.

Keep the shutter speed around 1/640 if you can, to keep the motion blur to reasonable speeds. Adjust aperture to flavor.

Thank you so much! This picture was taken over 2 years ago and my buddy definitely wants to do something like this again so when we decide to try it, I will use these tips! Thanks a bunch! Since this shot was taken I have also learned so much about my camera and how everything works so I would expect a way better shot!