This Vette is Lit

The Corvette is known as America's favorite sports car. Low, fast and sexy, many of us grew up with dreams of owning one. Well, recently one of my friends got his wish. The kids now out of the house and some extra room in the budget, he found a deal on a well maintained 2013 and pulled the trigger. I'm a Corvette lover too, so with a little arm twisting, I was able to arrange a photo shoot.

Parking garages make interesting locations for car shoots, so we decided to meet up on a rooftop lot at the airport. Since we would be working after dark I had a couple of ways to go to get the results I was after. This time I chose light painting. The idea is to set up your camera on a tripod, set the shutter to remain open for 10-15 seconds and illuminate the car with a flashlight, LED or some other light source. I use an LED light wand. You want to make sure you capture all parts of the car, so several passes are often required. I like to make sure I have everything I need, so for this image I had 19 different exposures. Overkill for sure, but that's just me.

Back at the computer, the fun begins. I have to choose the images that best illuminate the car and blend them into a single image. Photoshop is the tool of choice here. Each exposure is carefully arranged as a layer in a stack, making sure that everything lines up perfectly. The final result is a composite of the all the layers in the stack. Then you edit the image as if it were a single exposure. It's a lot of work, but the results can be amazing.

All the best,
Doug