Since you (Shady) asked for my input on the photos:
#1: The garage should be darker and the front should have a small amount of light on it so you can see the “angry face” the car has. Right now my attention is drawn to a Mac Tools logo, propane tank, and an MSD/NX box in the background.
#2: Your highlights are a little blown out on the building and ground. People usually get all worked up if your sky is blown out too but I’ve never really cared too much myself about the sky for an automotive shot. The wheels look a little on the soft side and some detail is lost there as well. The overgrowth of greenery is always tough around abandoned structures, it always seems to jump out at you.
#3: I love the tone and hue of the foreground; the greens don’t grab my attention in the background which is good. I see an awesome spot for a direct side shot in the background against the building right by the graffiti. Wheels look much better in this shot, I can see they’re polished, no distracting reflections on the side of the car either, best shot of the set IMO.
#4: Same as above except some of the greenery along the rear bumper and rear window stick out a little. Great idea for the nitrous bottle.
#5: This should be the front thats in the garage shot. Same lights on, subtle background light in the garage. Overall not a bad shot, has a nice “what you would see coming up behind you feel”.
#6: This appears to be a mild HDR or some type of multi-exposure composite, if not the levels are tweaked a little giving you some colored rings or halos around the lights. Having the front wheels angled in this shot with the car at a less of an angle would look good. Having the wheels angled in a static shot convey that the car is stopped and posed, wheels straight mean “motion” to me. Also with the wheel angled you can get two angles of the wheel in one exposure, showing off the shape of the wheel.
#7: The streetlights give the image a nice depth and no nasty rings around the glow of the streetlights in this shot like the one above. Gives you a nice street race feel with the long straight road.
#8: Slightly less of an angle and turn the wheels to the left. I want to look over the hood and see whats down the road when I look at this shot. Minimal reflections are nice in these shot considering all the streetlights that are around.
#9: Great detail shot, nice shallow DOF, great background hue.
#10: I like how the wheels are exposed , again showing a nice polished finish but the front and rear bumpers get lost into the darkness and Im not crazy about the square of light on the wall or the fade into darkness in the foreground. A little more room on each end of the car wouldn’t hurt. I bet if you strobed the rear wall, ceiling, car, and foreground in separate exposures and put them together it would bring some great detail out of the wall and pavement as well as the car.
#11: Again, great job on minimizing reflections in the paint, the wide angle lens distorts the car a little, but overall looks great. Car is black but not too black where I can’t make out details like door handles.
Keep shooting, definitely not a bad set at all (no JDM angles, thank god). No image will ever be perfect in everyones eyes, another person may pick out different things than I did. More or so lately I haven’t given a rats-ass on what anyones opinion is and just shoot for myself and if it looks good to me. I could tear apart my own photos and I have some where I ask myself “WTF were you thinking?!” still to this day. Best way to shoot is to zone out, not have another thought in your head other than what you are trying to create.
