by Jim Zuckerman
I have wanted to photograph a red 1959 Cadillac for a long time. It's not easy finding them, especially in mint condition. I finally called around to various car museums and found out that the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles has one. When I flew out to L.A. for a wedding I stopped by the museum to shoot this classic American car. My intention was to embellish the shot, of course, by putting another background behind the car. Since the exhibit was indoors with artificial lighting, I felt that a night shot would be perfect. Neon lighting gave me the color and the pizazz I wanted, and besides, it didnt make sense to put a car lit with tungsten lights with a background shot during daylight hours. In composite work, it's essential that the light matches or else the image will never look right. I took a shot from a county fair at night and, using the cut and paste technique in Photoshop, assembled the images.
Great blending of the car with the pasted-in background. What did you do to get the reflections in the chrome to match the background. Were they in the original photo of the car?
Posted by: Bill Rahling | December 10, 2008 at 06:29 AM