Car Photography
Commercial car and advertising photographer Tim Wallace works with many clients such as Aston Martin, Mercedes and Morgan and is well respected within the industry as one of todays leading car photographers.
Tim Wallace is a professional and well respected photographer both in the UK and Internationally and is well known for his automotive car and vehicle photography. Working with clients such as Jaguar, Land Rover, Morgan, Mercedes Benz and Aston Tim's work is often described as 'commercial' bordering on art, with a very distinctive style and attention to detail. With a passion for being both different and creative Tim works both within the prestige car market but also in the last few years has developed his unique imagery for use with companies such as NFT and Culina to shoot much larger commercial trucks in the same vain. He was also the first photographer in the UK to give industry first 'live shoot' seminars in the UK and discuss the elements that are key in the production of inspired and emotive photography at the request of Jaguar at their UK Headquarters.
These seminars are mainly attended by professional photographers and degree photography students, and have been a great success since they started in 2008 continuing to grow in demand each year and often selling out very quickly. Tim now includes an outdoor environment 'live' shoot with Land Rover at their main plants in Halewood and Birmingham along with 'live shoot' events at Morgan at their Malvern headquarters.
All of Tim's seminars are professionally project managed and are supported by leading manufacturers such as Hasselblad, ProFoto and Epson.
Further information on up coming events can be found in our news area 'The Hype'.
Tim's work was recently featured in the infamous 'Victor' Magazine where he was described as one of the most creative photographers in his field today, the magazine which is published Worldwide features each month what is considered to be the most cutting edge and best quality photography available at that time. It was a great honour to be shown in such a publication and indeed more so in the fact that Tim received over 16 pages for his work to be show, something that has not been achieved at that level by many before him and something that we at Ambient Life are very proud of.
A live and full copy of the magazine is available for you to view below or print out and read later.
Tim also works closely with his car industry clients such as Aston, Land Rover, Jaguar and most recently in 2010 Morgan. Morgan approached Tim in early Spring with a desire to utilise Tim's unique shooting style to help them make the transition from the more standardised car photography through to a body of work with more passion and feeling to suit their changing demographic of customer and fully show the passion of their own new designs with such models as the Aero 8. Some of Tim's initial work was used for the Geneva Motor Show in 2010 to great reviews and some really positive feedback not only from customers of Morgan but from their manufacturing staff themselves, a real indicator of the passion involved in such projects from both sides of the table. Since Tim's involvement with Morgan the company has made some design and photographic changes to their website presence as well as launching new brochures, marketing and advertising campaigns and using Tim's photography at major events such as a recent design event in Milan where a 40ft print was used to set off their stand and bring some real feeling of drama to the location.
This page is dedicated to the element of car photography, our work, and explains a little more about Tim's approach, creative thinking and gives a brief insight into what he offers our clients both within the UK and Internationally.
Features and Articles on Tim's Car Photography
Tim is often invited to talk about his work in this field and below we've included some links
to recent features and interviews that may offer additional reading for those interested in this area of Tim's work.
Victor April 2010 - 'Photographer Feature'
Photo PRO Magazine - 'Lighting Feature'
Calumet - 'Photographer Spotlight' Interview
Glyn Dewis Interview - 'Photographer Guest Spot' Interview
Digital SLR Photography - 'Photographer Interview' UK Magazine
Scott Kelby - 'Guest Interview' US Feature
Elinchrom Switzerland - 'The Making of Tim Wallace' Feature
What Digital Camera - 'Creative Drive' Photographer Interview
Focus Magazine - 'Photographer Tim Wallace' Feature Interview
Digital Camera - 'Out There' Magazine Interview
Pro Insight - 'Capturing Cars' Feature
“The scene in which the car is positioned and photographed is very important, for example on a recent commission I photographed the new Ford GT, the model reborn of the classic GT40. This car could be shot in a studio as we indeed did on one of the days however the main commercial shots that were done were all taken in a run down industrial estate near to the clients location. We did get some strange looks bringing such a beautiful car into such an urban and rough location, however that was in some respects the whole point as the car was very much in the tradition of the GT40 which was in its time a legend and built very much as a ‘blue collar’ working class hero so the industrial scene suited it well and brought some passion into the work, set the mood if you like. Once the 'environment based shots were complete we shot a selection of action based work. This work is normally completed using car rigs and shooting from chase cars, however once again its not simply a case of getting a sharp image of the car moving, its important to keep the creative element alive and allowing some distance to the subject with careful exposure and framing can be just as powerful as coming in very close to the car at speed. On the completion of the days shooting our client was extremely happy with the results, and even went on to take print orders from their own customers outside the intended usage in marketing and brochure publications, this is something that we see a lot of with clients and indeed its a great yard stick to say that people feel inspired by what in effect is simply a advertisement image.
Lighting, the key in some cases to creating a great image. Most of the lighting that we use is field portable such as Elinchrom and ProFoto, this is essential to our work as heavy and unreliable generators add expense and time to a shoot often. We do receive a great deal of emails from photographers who want to emulate the work that Tim produces and lighting diagram requests are a frequent item in our inbox.
Tim- "Lighting is a very personal thing and in truth its simply not possible to copy a lighting set up and get the same result. The way that I approach lighting is very simple, in cases where you will have multiple lights in play it's important to 'light up' to the subject slowly, what I mean is do not over light the car, throwing huge belts of light at it from different directions, a lot of my work I like to look as if its not been lit at all, subtle so to speak. The best way to do this is to set up each light one at a time, do a test shot and when your happy with the result move onto the next and so on, also consider however that where lights contaminate into each others area's that meter readings may need to be re-evaluated as light intensity increases in these area's as you would expect. Also people in my view make little use of the best light source that they have, the sun!, it's very underrated and if you look back at the time of the great masters you'll note that many used to employ a lighting technique that meant lighting in the same direction as the sun instead of against it as many seem to now. The important thing is not to bury your head in 'how to' books on lighting but simply to get out there and shoot different things and try new setups yourself, this way you will build up what I call a lighting 'Rolodex' in your mind of what works and what doesn't in different situations.
There is no easy answer to lighting, it's simply a piece of the puzzle or indeed a piece of the photographers tool kit that makes his work look different to the next guy, a style, a mood, his technique, it's personal and it's what each photographer must develop for themselves to achieve development as a photographer"
"Being out there shooting is where things happen..."
We work very closely with our clients to ensure that we offer the best possible photographic output for their needs with virtually all of our work coming from recommendations from existing clients and through agencies that have worked with us on commissions. We also offer many different options for final outputs of our work such as in the form of high quality professional DVD media presentations which many of our corporate clients favor for internal and commercial use. A sample of this can be seen below and further examples of these media presentations can be found here
The production of professional material for the workplace or showroom is another aspect of our work that features innovative design and visual impact, a recent example of this is a set of 8 12ft high banners to be used in a clients showroom promoting their modern approach to the product but also the heritage of the brand.
Click here to see a sample of the modern contemporary approach to the pillar design that Tim took as well as exclusively providing all the photography on this project.
Tim Wallace - "It’s a little too easy to create an ‘acceptable’ image for quick gratification where a little thought and passion can easily make use of the digital medium to create a truly inspirational piece of work through careful thought, exposure, and lighting. A camera does not create a great photograph, the photographer does, 90% of the achievement lays in your imagination of what you want to create.
I shoot many on Professional Hassleblad H3 DII's and Nikon D3’s which I find are great for my type of work. I also use Elinchrom ‘Ranger’ portable studio lights, the kit is very robust and offers me powerful yet consistently correct studio quality light in quite literally any environment which is very important when you’ve got a deadline to meet. I tie this equipment together using Elinchroms ‘skyport’ radio trigger system as its gives me total flexibility and again is consistent and reliable under bad conditions, but I can’t stress enough that each situation in car photography is different and its not the equipment that makes the image, it’s the passion and imagination that is invested into it."
"Often with professional automotive car work it will involve some more ‘action’ based shots which I achieve using a professional car rig that can be easily deployed for use on most vehicles, this allows us to get some really dramatic photography that sits well for use in magazines, brochures and other area’s of client output. The rig can be used in a very versatile ways to capture elements of the car in motion as well as afford me the ability to be very fluid with my shots and open up possibilities for very unusual and eye catching photography that holds the viewers attention, a real must for many of my clients who believe in the power of strong imagery. For more overall car action work we often use chase cars to shoot from, and this is easily set up providing of course safety measures are in place and road access is available.”
"I have been fortunate recently to receive awards for my work including the Environmental Photographer of the Year Award in 2008 by Epson, 2nd place runner up for Photographer of the Year 2009 as well as receiving the Associate Distinction Award for Professional and Applied photography by the RPS but very possibly our largest accolade to date has been to be named as one of ten photographers selected by Hasselblad to be members of the
new 'Pro Team', a group of professional photographers chosen for the quality and innovation of their work within their field of photography, a very high honour indeed and one that I am particularly proud of."
The future?
Our clients are building steadily and today include some major corporate companies both in the UK and US although like most business’s I’m always looking to tomorrow, new opportunities and potential new clients."
Commercial Vehicles
As well as shooting performance and classic automotive cars Tim also works in the field of commercial vehicles such as trucks and vans. In 2007 we were approached by Culina, one of Europe’s largest chilled and ambient food logistics companies. The company was under going a branding change following massive expansion and was seeking to have some dynamic and inspired photography done of their fleet. Tim met with the client and a plan was drawn up to shoot at several locations over a period of two days. We pride ourselves in the close relationship that Tim develops with our clients and this allows him to really achieve a strong idea of what the client is looking for. With Culina they had previously commissioned photography but felt that it was very much in the same order as a great deal of work in this field and were looking for something different, something inspirational. Following this successful project we also were invited to create a full library of marketing and brochure material in 2009 for NFT, again the creative approach and high standard of photography won Ambient Life this contract and NFT were extremely happy with the end results and now feature these in all their corporate advertising as well as in framed prints around all their sites in the UK.
Work is undertaken using the latest high end Hasselblad digital photographic equipment allowing both accurate and efficient use of the material in may forms to suit an every changing market. These can include web outputs, magazine and brochure quality photography, as well as digital media presentations such as corporate DVD shows and promotional items.
Our aim is to provide a professional service that fits your needs. We supply digital images for commercial organisations throughout the UK and pride ourselves on not only supplying the imagery, but also any advice you might need to get the very best out of them. These services include creating branded work for client area's, as well as working to tight marketing and design briefs to ensure that the clients visions are met to the highest levels for use in company documents, websites, and advertising.
We always supply our clients with a full breakdown of rates and costs in quotations and will clearly explain all the available options that might best fit your requirements.
We are also happy to quote an "All-inclusive price" which includes all charges for shoot, process and supply of images for specific usage.
Full details are available on quotes as required, since we don't like hidden costs, we don't see why you should either!
We supply images in digital form on CD or DVD media. This is usually in the form of high resolution, colour balanced, files in TIFF format at resolution of 300dpi. JPEGs, other format files and other resolutions are of course available on request should you have that requirement. We will supply colour balanced JPEG format images web ready at 72dpi or 96dpi as a matter of course for web use on request.
Additional specialist image enhancement (CS3 / Capture One) is fully available to all our clients and is by prior arrangement and costs are dependant on the type of work to be undertaken and volumes involved.
This is charged on a reasonable hourly basis if required or can be booked at a reduced rate for the day.
Photographic prints are available as standard in a range of high quality finishes and also we are happy to undertake bespoke orders in a range of outputs from traditional, to modern acrylic sheets for wall mounting to offer that all important unique designer feel. All printing is professionally completed to the highest quality using 100 year fade resistant chemicals and not cheap low quality electronic printing processes.
We can also offer a hand framing service for that all important finished feel to photographic work that you may wish to display in your business or customer environment.
If you would like to arrange a commission please feel free to call, to discuss your needs.
Alternatively mail us directly: inspired@ambientlife.co.uk
"Be passionate about your product, be inspired by your customers"
© Copyright Declaration
All images shown on this site are protected by International Copyright Law
and by the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.
All images, text and ideas are the 'intellectual property' of Tim Wallace™