The key to creating compelling car ads is having strong, high-quality photography that shows off the car’s best features. In this week’s photography submissions, two great photographers show us the innovative techniques that allowed them to capture stunning car images!
Aman Shakya is a studio photographer based in Savannah, GA. After receiving his undergraduate degree in information technology from the Assumption University of Thailand, Shakya moved to Georgia to study at the Savannah College of Art and Design where he received his masters in photography. Since then, Shakya has continued to nourish his craft, developing a keen eye for light and showing boundless expertise in both image compositing and post-producing. For his submission “Beamer” (above), Shakya shot SCAD’s new extended reality (XR) stage, a virtual production set that provides film students with a hyperrealistic background and surrounding to create an immersive environment.
In Shakya’s photo, the BMW, nicknamed “Beamer”, is set on the stage in front of an intergalactic planet, brightly lit by a blue, purple, and pink glow and an eclipsed sun. Unlike a traditional green screen, the XR stage is a combination of animation and live-action which take any real object or person standing on it and seamlessly integrates them into an animated world. This gives photographers and filmmakers quality images without additional lighting adjustments or post-production edits to account for accurate environmental reflection information and illumination. Due to these advancements, the car looks fully immersed in the digital environment, giving us a photograph that looks straight out of a high-budget commercial.
