This week car and commercial photographer Tim Wallace completed a project for our client Aston Martin looking at the infamous Aston Martin ‘Vantage’ both past and present.

Tim -“It was great to be involved in a project like this, I do a great deal of work with Aston and over the last 4 years of working with them I have really got to know every curve and line of these models, mix that with my passion to shoot and capture detail with lights and good old fashioned lighting photography skills and I am in heaven!
The older ‘vantage’ models are very beautiful cars with their own unique design and lines that so many of us have got to know over the years from films such as James Bond, the new V8 and V12 Vantage models are much more aggressive in their design, low and very predatory in their nature., it was a real pleasure to work on this campaign.”

DLSR Magazine Malaysia publish a 10 page feature on the work of automotive car and commercial photographer Tim Wallace this week. The magazine interviewed Tim for their ‘Pro’ feature and talked with him about his background, his drive, how he approaches his work today as recognised force in the commercial photography industry and just what the story is behind some of his strong views within the industry.

Read the full interview here online

The campaign that Tim shot was specifically to look at the classic lines and the simple beauty of the DB5.
Tim - “It was very tempting to start taking these 5′s out on location somewhere, get some drama going on and look for that epic shot but finally I decided to actually work alone with the cars inside and look at what it is that makes these models so beautiful and keeps them in peoples memories for a lifetime. For me the bonnet and its positive / negative curves mixed with the infamous Superleggera badge and the Aston Martin ‘wings’ are most recognisable. I have kept the lighting on these very simple and most of the time I was working with just a single light in the dark to quite literally drape light over the area I wanted to shoot, the effect I think focuses your attention to the lines of the car and the results seem to have worked very well so I am thrilled about that for our client who has already had some very positive feedback from the images. Sometimes I think less is most definitely more and in this case the set of images tie together and work well together because of this simple approach.”

The Aston Martin DB5 was launched in 1963, and was a development of the previous DB4 model which it replaced. Available as both sports saloon or convertible, the DB5 was slightly longer and also heavier than its predecessor, but the weight disadvantage was offset by the 4 litre version of the double overhead engine which produced 282 bhp. A higher performance Vantage model of the DB5 was also made and the power output on this car was 325bhp. Early cars were fitted with a four speed gearbox but had the option of three speed automatic, or a five speed ZF manual unit. The five speed gearbox soon became standard equipment on all DB5 cars. Further improvements over the DB4 included an improved exhaust system, alternator rather than dynamo, and electric windows as standard. Air conditioning was available as an option. In 1964 the DB5 found fame as the transport of a certain James Bond (played by Sean Connery) in the film Goldfinger, making it probably the best known of all Aston Martin models. After production of just over 1000 cars the DB5 was replaced in 1965 by the DB6.

Beijing Eye is a well respected and forward moving agency based in China and we are very pleased to report that Beijing Eye now officially represents Ambient Life car and commercial photographer Tim Wallace in that region. We look forward to working with this agency closely over the coming years as they grow and extend into new exciting markets.

www.Beijing-eye.com

More than 600 orders for the revamped British-made roadster have already been placed by Morgan enthusiasts across the world, meaning that would-be owners could face a four year wait to take delivery of the latest must have motor.

A recent 30 minute test drive was all it took to convince US chat show host Jay Leno that he should add one of the £30,000 two-seaters to his collection of classic vehicles.

This week car photographer Tim Wallace’s work for Aston Martin could be seen at the 2011 China International Car Show in the form of 6 massive 2.3 metre square panels that made up the main stand for our client Aston at this infamous international show.

The work will be on display for the duration of the show and features just some of the work that Tim has been commissioned to shoot over the last few years for Aston Martin. This company pressence is firmly aimed at the ‘restorations’ element to Aston and drives forward the message into the ever expending investment markets of China as the number of classic and prestige car collectors in this area of the world increases year on year.

Tim – “The Aston calendar is really special to me and each year a huge effort goes in to making sure that we have something different, this year I was lucky enough to spend some time in Switzerland and after falling in love with the sweeping mountains and snow covered peaks it was an obvious place to shoot Aston Martin’s. These cars represent different things to different people, some have fond memories of their boy hood dreams after watching the latest James Bond film hankering after that elusive silver birch DB5 classic, while others enjoy more recent memories with the DB9 and are drawn to the styling and engineering of some of Aston’s more recent triumphs such as the One77. Whatever the reason it is safe to say that Aston’s just never die, they stay in our hearts and in our imagination always. It was a pure pleasure to create the images for this years calendar and I hope that many people all over the World will get much enjoyment from it.”

The work that Tim produces within the car industry is often seen at inspirational and unique in its style and this led to Tim being the proud recipient this year of two major awards, Professional Commercial Photographer of the Year and most significantly also UK Car Manufacturer Photographer of the Year. Many people assume or believe that a great deal of the work that Tim presents has had a great deal of post production work done after capture however Tim is a very firm believer that photography is very much a skill and that a huge amount of creativity can be achieved with the right skill level in camera, something that Tim talks a lot about in interviews and also in his classroom based seminars. The photographers attending this Pro Live Shoot were able to witness the capture first approach that Tim takes to his work and then Tim performed various lighting setups to demonstrate the very high level of work that can be completed ‘in camera’ before post edit is required.

Tim - “It’s always great to do these live shoot seminars and in truth I get a huge amount of satisfaction from being able to demonstrate that photography is indeed very much still a skill and in my view one that we are allowing to die slightly as we increasingly become reliant on photoshop and post edit techniques to actually ‘create’ our work for us or rescue us from a bad shoot or technique. We had quite a few ‘eureka’ moments from the photographers attending and that’s always great to see and I look forward to keeping in touch with the friends that we made that day and seeing how they progress.
I would also like to thank Jaguar for allowing me the use of the facility for the event and most especially Karam Ram from Jaguar for all his support and assistance in arranging this event and making sure that all the pieces were in place. Peter Hodgson from Calumet for his unwavering support through the various seminars and talks that we have each year with Calumet and also the excellent background support and assistance on the day from the vendors such as Epson and Profoto who fully support each event that we undertake, a big thanks guys, it was very definitely a great seminar”

During October 2011 we spent 2 weeks down in Tampa with the guys from Kelby Training where we shot 4 specific videos for use on the Kelby Training website, these are for review online through Kelby Training.

The four classes that are online with Kelby Training from AmbientLife are;

1. How to light a car using multiple lights
2. Lighting a car and shooting detail with just one light
3. Shooting cars with only available light
4. Photoshop techniques for Car Photographers.

Behind the scenes during the US filming

All of the filming took place in Ybor near Tampa Florida at a location known as ‘The Trolley Barn’, a location made famous in its use during the filming of ‘The Punisher’ a few years ago. October in Florida is still pretty hot and during our first week the weather was indeed very humid with the whole team really feeling that heat inside the barn. Our choice of cars over the term of the shooting was a Ford Mustang V6, a Dodge Challenger, and a Cadillac CTS.

If you would like to watch how we worked with these cars and made the best use of our lighting then please join us online at Kelby Training where you can review and enjoy all 4 video classes, each of which is around 45 minutes to 1 hour in duration.

Kelby Training Checkout the great content available online

This years chosen area is parts and quality and some of the work that has been selected for entry under Tim’s name is shown below. The work includes photography that has been shot for both Aston in the UK and Mercedes in Germany during the last 12 months.

We wish all those that have had work selected the very best of luck with this years awards.

Below is the winning photograph that gained us this prestigious award in 2010 and was collected by Brian Spearman of Aston at the London awards ceremony on behalf of Tim Wallace as he was in Europe ironically shooting one of this years entries at the time and so was unable to attend himself in person.