I’m primarily a street photographer, so over the years, my eye has become tuned to spotting great lighting situations and interesting reflections. I’d just come out of the tube at Green Park in London and was walking down Piccadilly on the way to Soho to do street photography. It was late afternoon, and the light was fading fast when I noticed the black Lotus Emira in the window of their showroom. 

What struck me first was the high contrast between the bright white circular ceiling lighting and the sports car’s spotless black surface. My second thought was, wow, how often do you get to photograph a sports car with such an expensive lighting rig for free? As I mentioned earlier, I’m a street photographer, so you make the most of what you can. 

So now I start taking photographs. A prime lens means walking around the subject matter from side to side and back and forth to adjust the framing. With the camera set to aperture priority and f/8, I was happy because everything would be in focus. Unfortunately, lens-wise, I only had a 45mm with me, so unless I stood in the middle of a busy street, I wasn’t able to fit the whole car in with a landscape shot.

Getting a good shot is all about narrowing down your options by removing the ones that don’t work. So now I’m concentrating on portrait orientation. But even then, I’m struggling to get the whole car into the frame while maintaining an interesting reflection on it. So now my decision process is ruling out the whole car, and I’m leaning toward something slightly more abstract. I say slightly because I still want the image to say car, just not all of it. 

Now the last piece of the jigsaw falls into place. By photographing the front three quarters of the car and moving about from left to right I manage to get the yellow Lotus logo sitting between the black of the bonnet and the white reflection of the overhead lights. 

In postproduction, I increase contrast, tweak the framing, and remove some unwanted reflections to tidy up the image and give it a clean, glossy finish.

What are the TWO most impactful features that make your image a good photograph? Don’t be shy!

Number one has to be the lighting. So all credit must go to Lotus for investing so much in the showroom set up to make their cars look so well. Secondly, to me, it is the smallest detail that makes the shot. Making sure the light cuts through the middle of the yellow-badged Lotus logo.

If you could make this photo again, what would be the ONE thing you would like to do better or different?

I would bring a wider lens with me and go out when the traffic is less busy so I could take shots of the whole car. Although I am happy with the result, the 45mm lens forced me into.

Jeremy C Glover shared this photograph with the FRAMES Facebook Group.

Photographer

Jeremy C Glover, London, United Kingdom

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Equipment and settings

Sony Alpha C + Samyang 45mm
f/8, 1/500 sec, ISO6400
Minimal post-production in Photoshop to adjust framing, increase contrast, and remove some unwanted blemishes/reflections.