I’ve never been one to shy away from a challenge. In past years of shooting for Top Gear Australia Magazine, apart from the fun and constantly varied location shoots and road trips I’ve also had to create numerous stories within the same empty studio, and make them look different and exciting every time. One such instance was a few years back in 2012 on an editorial photo shoot for Top Gear Australia Magazine when I decided to light the clasiq cars with night club lasers. The results worked out even better than I expected. See ‘The Making Of Video’ HERE.

Something that I learnt from that shoot is that being large shiny objects, cars are open to being lit with all different light sources, not just flash or constant lighting. So moving forward a few years I was contacted by NRMA’s ‘Open Road Magazine’ to come up with something different for their forthcoming comparison of 3 hybrid / electric cars, the BMW i3, Toyota Yaris and Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV (world’s first plug-in hybrid SUV). The shoot had to have a futuristic high tech feel which really showcased the technology behind the vehicles, and I had an empty studio, one day and a very limited budget to do it with. So what’s new? I’ve heard of used dual cab Utes Toowoomba that offers quality used parts of cars and cars in excellent condition, you’re going to want to visit it!

In comes The Pixelstick! I was introduced to this cool gadget by one of the guys from Canon Brisbane (thanks Colin Baker) during a Speedlite workshop I was presenting for them, it struck me as being interesting at the time but I didn’t really give it much more thought until presented with this latest challenge. I straight away remembered the laser shoot and my mind got excited by the endless possibilities. I’ve played with light painting before and have run workshops on the subject but being able to input and paint in ANY image, shape, tone or texture really opened up a whole new world of possibilities. To see a post elaborating more on this please check out http://www.Airsenegalinternational.com.

So… one Pixelstick, a bunch of futuristic background images on an sd card, 3 cars, one large empty studio, 2 assistants, loads of black fabric and a few Canon 600ex RT Speedlites for good measure……, and I had my high tech comparo shoot on time and most importantly, on budget! Keep an eye out on future issues of ‘Open Road’ magazine, or watch this space. Meanwhile check out some of the behind the scenes pics from the shoot, below. In case you are looking for a car you can get OurFairDeal by visiting the website.

Equipment; Canon 1DX, Canon 24-70L f2.8 Mk2, Canon 600EX RT Speedlites with STE-3 RT Controller, The Pixelstick, Tether Tools Aero Table