Automotive Clients
Case Study Quick Links
Over the years we have worked with many leading brands in the motor industry, OEMs from McLaren to Aston Martin, Peugeot and Lexus, to supply high-quality automotive photography for our clients’ advertising and marketing campaigns. Here are a few of those client projects and some further background information on the work that we have completed for them.
Creating great car photography is one of those specialised fields of professional photography that people often think is very straightforward, just pointing a camera at a great-looking car. The reality is that location work can often be driven by many factors aside from the actual car itself, and all of these have to be planned for, even weather is closely looked at 2 weeks out before the shoot dates. With some OEM automotive photoshoots commanding large budgets and many hours of planning from all the people within the project team, it is not an option to just hope for the best. This is where experience comes into its own, for example when shooting dynamic motion car photography at a test track facility like MIRA, full risk assessments need to be completed and a full plan of the shoot prepared. We always work very closely with our automotive clients in the lead-up to any shoot to help ensure we get the best results possible.
When it comes to studio-based work the skill sets involved are completely different, lighting often is continuous rather than strobe and with Tim his passion is lighting, being able to craft and create just what he wants to produce that series of car photography images that reach further than just what the car looks like, but to capture what it makes you feel like. Lighting is very much a key element in studio car photography, not only from the point of producing great results for the client but also maintaining consistency across a suite of images. Often a car brochure can consist of over 45 high quality images that will be shot over a one-week period in a specialised car studio facility that is equipped fully for automotive shoots.
Working with McLaren
McLaren Special Operations (MSO) is a bespoke division, dedicated to helping take McLaren ownership to a whole new level. MSO create cars around an owner’s precise tastes, and are able to provide everything from bespoke customisation options through to building ultra-exclusive limited-edition or one-off models.
Their mission is to make what is already special into something truly unique, to create your perfect McLaren. Tim has worked closely with our client McLaren for a number of years to create the stunning automotive car photography that is used in their brochures, website content and marketing material, including MSO work for the new High Downforce Kit.
Mclaren Special Operations (MSO)
The very first project that we worked on with McLaren was to shoot the full accessories brochure for the MSO division. All the initial car photography was completed over a one-week period shooting in the UK at Calverts studios and then went into post-edit for a further week to get all the images ready for McLare to sign off before using them on the McLaren website.
The client brief was to complete a comprehensive suite of 54 high-quality beautiful photographic image assets to be utilised to create the McLaren ‘Genuine Accessories Catalogue’.
The entire shoot would be based around the McLaren 570S car and would need to fully capture the entire range of options that would be available, from the handcrafted carbon through to body modifications, as well as all the interior upgrade options. Once completed the MSO brochure would be available through the global McLaren website and within the ownership portal. McLaren had a very precise requirement for how all the completed images should look and feel, and with strong corporate image guidelines in place, the photography had to strictly follow these to allow the suite of car photography-based images to all tie together consistently and cohesively when placed within the final McLaren brochure.
McLaren Super Series
Our Super Series brief involved creating all the automotive photography required for our client, McLaren, to be used in the production of their new Super Series Accessory Brochure online.
The shot list was comprehensive and consisted of both full-body car photography shots, as well as complex overhead photographs showing the car from above, and all the upgrades and optional parts and accessories that were to be available to McLaren owners. A total of 43 separate and completed images were required, all needing to be consistent with each other in style and feel and all high in quality as the client would be using them in both web form and in print media for marketing and advertising. All the car photography was completed over a period of one week, shooting in one of the specialist studios that we often use in the UK that are purpose-built for automotive based vehicle photography.
The 'Super Series' shoot was based around the McLaren 720s supercar and we would be working with 2 specific cars, the 720s Coupe and the 720s Spider, both being in different colours. These vehicles were both fully fitted out prior to the shoot with the options and various accessories, this allowed us to capture everything from the handcrafted carbon through to the smallest of details and modifications as well as covering all the interior work across both cars.
Client: Peugeot Worldwide
Location: Peugeot Design Centre, Paris
Tim - "Peugeot is a great automotive client from my perspective as the design team is very strong indeed and they have great vision for how they want to sculpt the photography around their product design and branding. At Peugeot it really is very much all about 'emotion' so when they first approached me through their production company, Cream, it was a great opportunity to work with a focused and dedicated creative team to produce something very special for the prototype cars launch at the Geneva Motor Show a few months later.
Shooting any prototype car photography campaign is a large and involved process and shooting their new concept car was something that I was personally very happy to be involved in. As with any type of worldwide campaign, it’s crucial to ensure that everything is planned and worked out well in advance so that during the days of actual shooting the team can concentrate fully on creating and producing the photography that is required. We completed all the photography over a period of 4 days, shooting at Peugeot in Paris where they have their own studios that allow prototype cars to be photographed without the risk of them needing to leave the facility and therefore risk being seen before they are launched.
We worked with the Cream Production company based in Paris on this shoot, the team there is both completely dedicated and very creative, and having such a well-organised production house involved can really help to make sure that as a whole the project gets the very best result possible for the client."
Working with Peugeot
Project Fractal - Prototype Car
We have worked with Aston Martin for a number of years now and some of Tim's Aston classic car photography is very well known within the automotive industry for being both cutting edge and for its more unusual creative artist approach and has even led to him receiving both 'Commercial Photographer of the Year' and 'UK Motor Industry Photographer of the Year' awards. Tim has worked alongside Aston for many years on both the creation of sales and marketing car photography as well as photographing the background engineering and progress engineering photography documenting the in-depth and time-consuming work that is undertaken to fully restore a classic Aston Martin, as well as shooting the infamous £1 million Aston Martin, the One-77 at the main Aston Martin Design Centre in Gaydon. In 2017, our 2 year long car photography project to shoot the Aston Martin 'Portfolio Of Dreams' Book was completed.
Working with Aston Martin
Tim - "Our work with Aston Martin is in my opinion some of the most satisfying and challenging that we have carried out. The purchase of an Aston Martin can cost anywhere between £80k and £8m and as such it's my responsibility to create a series of car photography images that capture the sheer essence of a single vehicle or a model range to both inspire and create a desire within the viewer to drive one of these beautiful Aston Martins, viewing it as both an emotional and desirable automotive purchase.
You don't in truth purchase an Aston Martin car based on just performance, and it is unlikely that the practical aspects of economy and efficiency will factor highly in the decision, as such it is very much an emotional and lifestyle-based purchase, this means that I need to shoot according to that market and to that end and create that desire, this is exactly what we try to achieve with our work for Aston Martin. Over the years we have seen sales of the Classic Aston models almost double and also seen a broadening of the modern range customer base, a very satisfying response to the automotive campaigns and visual work that has been put into these projects.
As young children, we all remember the early James Bond films with the legendary DB5, first featured in Goldfinger in 1964, quite possibly one of the most famous cars ever built and one that has enjoyed coming back into the public eye, capturing the hearts of a new younger audience, following the release in 2021 of the James Bond film, 'No Time To Die'.
Aston Martin Book - Portfolio of Dreams
We were extremely proud and honoured when the Aston Martin Book 'Portfolio Of Dreams' was officially launched with Sir Stirling Moss writing the foreword. The book journeys through the life and models of Aston Martin from the very first prototype car to the very latest super car models of today. The actual project was a mammoth piece of work that saw us shooting models over 4 years for Aston in the UK to build up a complete history of every car that the company ever designed and produced.
It is a wonderful celebration of Aston Martin through their first 100 years and is a major book publication of nearly 700 pages of stunning car photography capturing each of their significant models built and created over that time. It includes some very famous cars through the years, race winners, and starts its journey from the very first Bamford Martin car all the way through to the infamous DB5 and onwards to the latest DBS and One77 models of recent years. When printing of the book first commenced the first 100 limited editions were all signed by Tim and quickly sold out, many going to Aston Martin owners and collectors around the world.
Tim - "Being asked to create all the photography for the Aston book was indeed a great honour and it was a project that I worked on for a number of years. The book is primarily a 'coffee table' style book of great photography looking at each of the models through the history of Aston Martin design and endeavour to create cars that instil both passion and soul. It was a truly massive project and I still remember that initial meeting that I had at Aston when the idea came to light, the task to create a pictorial book of beautiful photography that followed through every model that Aston Martin ever made from the very first prototype Bamford A3, a car that is closely guarded and indeed priceless today, through then to all the variants and models to the cars of today that Aston Martin have become so well known for crafting and producing.
Some of the cars that I have captured for this book such as the Zagato's VEV1 and VEV2 are very rare and today are in the same condition as the day that they drove out of the factory gates, they are truly amazing cars with such a wonderful rich history.
For me personally, it's a joy to shoot these cars and we have been working with Aston in the UK and Europe for many years now so I am very familiar with both the company and the vehicles themselves which was a major benefit to the project for me.
I get asked a lot by people if I drive these cars, and the answer is yes I do as I often position them myself into where I need them for the shoot, some cars are indeed easier to drive than others especially some of the pre-war models that have their accelerator switches on the actual starring wheel, not to mention those where the pedal layout is all mixed around... it takes a bit of concentration whilst driving those around as it is the very last car in the world that you would want to damage, safe to say that my insurance for such things is very significant indeed!
It was in the early part of 2017 that the provisional first layouts were shown to me and indeed having the material to 'fill' almost 700 pages is no easy task aside from the layouts themselves but the project progressed and this August the first 2000 books were delivered to Aston where I visited to sign the Limited-Edition copies that sold out virtually straight away after being announced. I think that it’s fair to say that I was smiling that day and I guess for me what made it that bit extra special was to have the late Sir Stirling Moss write the foreword for my book, a great honour indeed."
Working with Lexus
Lexus UK joined our automotive client list back in 2017 when we were asked to do a car photography shoot in studio with the RC300H F Sport Black Edition for marketing to promote the launch of the new model variant. Later we went on to work with Lexus and their supporting agency with other models such as the Lexus UX 250h F Sport Edition which was entirely shot on location at a London-based house location specially chosen for the shoot. The location shoot featured a more lifestyle mood with us using a model that was chosen for the specific demographic that the advertising campaign for the UX 250h was to be aimed at. Working on location and lighting in that environment is a completely different skill set from shooting and lighting in studio but photographer Tim Wallace is very happy to work in both areas very comfortably to ensure that our client gets the right car photography for their campaign.
