It's NOT Just a Photo for a Catalogue
Whether it’s a photo for a catalogue or a listing, to me it’s never just a photo: it’s an opportunity to stand out from the crowd and evoke emotion.
PHOTOGRAPHYSOCIAL MEDIA
As a social media manager, I was once tasked with posting photos of cars that were, let’s say, of questionable quality, with truly dreadful backgrounds. I didn’t want to flat-out refuse, so I made the controversial decision to replace the background using Photoshop’s AI.
Shocking, I know. But here’s the thing: up until that point, the background had “never mattered” to them - “the car is the subject, who cares where it’s parked?” they used to say.
Then I swapped in a backdrop of cherry blossoms, perfectly offsetting the car’s paintwork, and suddenly the image was worth talking about. I’d made my point.
How? Simple: they finally realised that not having a cemetery in the background is the bare minimum.
The real message here is this: when clients ask me to shoot cars for a catalogue, I can’t just take a quick snap and call it a day. I always aim to go the extra mile, to create the best possible image, one that truly represents the car and makes someone stop and say, oh wow. That’s the goal.
It doesn’t matter if it’s a car or even a tractor: for me, it’s never just a catalogue photo.
And yes, I’ll probably ask you to move the car at least four times, and it definitely won’t take less than an hour.
