Test shot (or two) for a Ford Dealership

I've been shooting car commercials for a certain Ford dealership here locally for years. The woman that hires us knows that I shoot stills and has finally asked me to take the time and see what we may want to do for taking beauty shots of some of their inventory. Specifically their tarted up Mustangs and Shelby's for use in ads, printed matterials and the internet.

We looked around on the inside of the dealership to see if there were any good areas that looked different from what we've already seen in previous TV spots. There in the front attrium of the dealership was a Red 2011 Shelby GT-500 sitting all by itself. And me with my camera, stands, lights and triggers. What's a boy to do?

I took a couple of quick test shots to see what would be seen in this location and so we had something we could talk about.

Here's my quick ten minute effort with a couple different looks of the same car. Lighting was from a pair of Canon 540EZ's pointed down at the tile floor and then some from the large wrap around windows at my back and of course the stupid floro ceiling lights.

I like the processing you did on #2.

It works for what they need, especially for a small car ad, and they probably aren't concerned with nice highlights without bad reflections, but you aren't getting any of that important behind the wheel time in that beauty, are you?

You said she wanted "beauty shots", not "car in landscape" shots? Filling the frame with the car as you did here works better for me, & probably for a car dealer too. I wouldn't think that anything wider that this shot of the "Beast" would be too much BG unless they need the space to run type over. Even then, you could always shoot a touch wider & crop where they don't need the space. So a more unidentifiable background that didn't take attention away from the car would work better for me.

That's "cyc", for cyclorama, & it's going to be expensive. If they have that sort of budget, maybe they should be paying you more?

Good luck with this account. It should be a bit of fun (if you get to drive them) & pay a lot of bills, too.

the lighting around the headlight looks really weird, almost makes the headlight look like it was badly PS'd in there.

I like what you did in the second shot too. I think the floor looks great. One question though, why is there a light reflection in the second one but not the first? Might look better without the reflection on the windshield. Maybe try a strobe inside to add a little kicker off the seats?

Great ideas everyone and thanks! I PP'd these at differnet times and forgot what I did on the different days. So I might have done one differently than the other. I normally do a master all the through and then from that I make variants. Not this time for some reason.

Thanks for the spelling correction Frank. I have a studio already piced out that has a two wall "cyc" that is 40ft on one side and 25ft on the other. Both with the curve. As for the expense, well I'm having the woman at the dealership work on that. She buys lots of air time from the local cable giant here and thinks she can work a deal for the use of a relatively unused stage. She is also wanting to shoot her TV ads there too. So I will work it out to get paid both as a sound mixer and then as a photog. Killing two birds with one stone for her. And making a lot more money in the proccess. Everyone wins.

I like the idea of the white stage. With the addition of some large white 20x20 silks suspended from the lighting grid and a pair of 4K soft boxes, these cars will look great!

We have another TV spot scheduled forearly next month, so we'll see what she wants to do.

I have a couple more shots that I took for her that I'm working on. They were more refined shots, but lit with TV lighting (constant lights). I'll post those up here soon.

I like what you did with the 2nd shot.... its enough change that it doesn't ruin the original shot (or make it too fake)