Look who is back for the third time, Lorell. Yup, we collaborated again on another photo shoot. What I love about shooting with Lorell is that every shoot is different. First shoot was down in Midtown Miami at night, the second was down on Key Biscayne and this one we were dealing with old school Rolls Royces and Bentleys from Vantage Autos in Miami. So ladies and gentlemen enjoy the ride as I guide you through the shoot with Lorell.
Lorell hit me up saying she found this car garage that has all these old school Rolls Royces and Bentleys and how she wanted to do a shoot with them and possibly hit up South Beach afterwards. As soon as she mentioned old school cars I was already thinking like an old Hollywood type photo shoot in black and white etc. Lucky for me she was on the same page. My concern was would they allow us to shoot in there, but Lorell talked to one of the workers who said to come on a Saturday and how it would be ok since Saturdays are their “slow” days.
We arrived and Lorell saw the worker she spoke to and he showed us to the garage where they stored the cars and was like, “Have fun.” The first thing I noticed was the black, reflective floors. I was like this could work. The cars were amazing. I was extra careful moving my gear because I’m not trying to scratch a $200k car. The only setback was that everything was so close together that it was hard to find a place to set up everything and still have enough room to shoot. We went around the garage and found a spot that would work for us so Lorell put on the finishing touches on her while I set up my 28″ Westcott Apollo Softbox with my SB-900 inside. I set the SB-900 to 1/4 power because I didn’t want the light to be too bright and I didn’t want it to be too dark either.
As were began shooting other people came into the garage and were looking at the cars. One gentleman in particular came by and I assumed he was the owner when he said, “What are you doing with my cars?” Lorell replied it was for her portfolio and how one of the workers gave us the ok. She asked if we should stop and he was like what was the point you’re already here. So with that we quickly took our shots and left. It was a shame because we had some unfulfilled ideas to shoot in there.
After that we went to some train tracks near by to get more shots. It was funny as soon as we stepped on the tracks workers from this laundry mat on the other side of the fence made the announcement that we were doing a photo shoot and then it was fun to watch them all come outside to do some “work.” For the train track shots I brought out my favorite lens, the 70-200 f/2.8. That lens is my workhorse. We tried a whole bunch of poses and angles and after showing her some from the back of my camera she seems quite excited about them. We were still shooting and I noticed this faint, tiny light in the distance. That would be a train coming and that faint, tiny light became brighter and bigger with each approaching second. With that our shoot was done because this wasn’t a small train but one of those long ass trains that go forever. In hindsight I should have posed her by the tracks with the train going by and slowed the shutter speed to blur the train, but she was barefoot and there were broken bottles all around us because I take my models to classy, upscale locations hahhahahahahahahahhha
