The Dali Museum in St. Petersburg was host to an event put on by Crown Jaguar for guests to come and see some of its cars, including the stunning new Jaguar F-Type Coupe (see above). This was my second time working for Crown, as I photographed the Audi A3 premiere event back in April too. This time they hired me to photograph all the guests as they arrived in front of a F-Type. This was my first time doing this kind of arrival portrait photography actually. The shooting began just before sunset so early arriving guests got a colorful background like in the above portrait. Soon night came and the background became just a few distant lights.
This was my setup for all the portraits. My camera was on a tripod so every shot was in the same framing. I advised people to stand in front of the front wheel of the Jaguar F-Type Coupe to further insure similar photo results. I had two speedlights each in a brolly and kept the one to frame left constant, but as night fell moved the one to frame right to also light the car more. Unfortunately, the provided lighting for the car was not very bright at all. I compensated for that by moving one speedlight and tweaking a few camera settings. I ended up pleased with the results of night portraits using just two speedlights with a large background object (the car).
Some guests wore costumes as Halloween was just three days away. It was interesting to look up and see who might appear before my lense each shot. Many people joked asking if this photo was their opportunity to win the car or something like that. I only ever replied simply, "umm, no."
The Jaguar F-Type Coupe received universal praise for its looks by everyone. As of the time of shooting, Crown Jaguar did have this particular F-Type for sale!
It was a fun and challenging evening of photography, my favorite kind, and I got to stare at a beautiful car the whole time too. Two Crown Jaguar employees helped make sure each guest would receive their print of the photos I made by writing down the photo number as I shot, thank you ladies!