Picture This

I am a hack photographer.  I take lots of pictures, mainly of cars in various poses.  I have two cars, and, of course, I have two cameras.  I use them as most of us use them.  I point, zoom, autofocus and click.  Voila, I have a picture.  I either like it or I don’t.  I take the lighting as an unchangeable constant.  The only time I fiddle with the mode selector on the camera is when it randomly moves off automatic and I reset it.  That is, until today.

Today I, along with 20 or so PCA Los Angeles Porsche buddies, took a photography class from the legendary Al Satterwhite.  The class was sponsored by Samy’s Camera, and it was held at the Petersen Automotive Museum.  The class was aimed at teaching serious photography skills.   The subject matter was taking pictures of, what else, cars generally and Porsches specifically.  I went for the latter reason, as I really should have been in a class where the teacher taught entry level photography concepts.  This was made abundantly clear to me at one point in the class when Al gently suggested to me that I read the manual that came with the camera.  More about that later.

Al Satterwhite is the real deal.  He has been a professional photographer for decades, shooting motor sports, print ads, magazines, and even motion pictures.  He was a joy to listen to, even if I only understood him in concept and could not begin to understand how to implement his thoughts.  But that was okay.  I enjoy listening to experts.

Our class started with some classroom time,  Al showed us a video montage of many of his automotive shots.  To say they were spectacular would be an understatement.  After he showed us the video he put several shots on the screen and explained what he wanted in the shot, how he took the shot and how he prepared for it.  Apparently there is much more to this than point, zoom, autofocus and click.  According to Al, shooting cars, or any metal object, outside is very difficult because of hot spots and glare.  He said the best times are 20 minutes after the sun comes up or 20 minutes before it goes down.

After lecture time,  we went into the “cove,” a special room in the Petersen with overhead lighting and rounded corners and walls designed for photography.  We had a good time wandering around and taking pictures, as most of us will never have the opportunity to shoot in that environment very often.

Then we went outside to take pictures of our models, Charlie’s yellow Cayman GT4 and my red 1989 911 Targa.  Al explained that he liked to shoot cars against interesting backgrounds, like solid walls or near other objects.  He stressed that he really liked primary colors.  So he must have just loved our cars.  We took pictures for awhile, and Al showed us how he set up his camera on a tripod connected to his laptop with a hood so he could clearly see the exact shot he would be taking.  He stressed that he likes to compose his shots in the viewfinder and leave Photoshop for only minor adjustments.

We moved the cars from the direct sun into various places in the shade.  Al explained how to angle the car to minimize the hot spots or the glare and the reflections from backlit shots.  After that we spent time shooting frontlit shots.  It was during this exercise that my lack of photography skills became glaring.  We were supposed to shoot into the light and change the shutter speed to enable  the camera to focus on the primary object and blur or white out the background.  Needless to say, my automatic mode failed miserably.  Al said, “Put it in manual mode and change the shutter speed.”  My response was, “How?”  Because my friend Mark was nearby we got the camera into manual mode and changed the shutter speed.  When I retook the picture, the difference was unbelievable.  Al graciously only made one comment.  He said, “You might want to read the manual.”

Then we moved up one flight of stairs to shoot down at the cars from above, providing some interesting angles and perspectives.  That was interesting.  Though the sun was not in the proper position to properly position the cars, we had fun shooting them anyway.

So I took my first photography class.  I enjoyed it, more because of the chance to listen to Al than for the improvement in my photography.  For that I will need to take a beginning class.  Hopefully, I can remember all of Al’s comments when I have the skills to implement them.