Automotive photography for PR and marketing needs to do more than produce one strong picture of a car.
Manufacturers, PR teams and agencies often need a varied library of images that can work across press releases, websites, social media, advertising and wider campaign use. That can mean hero shots of the vehicle, details and interiors, moving images, people, event coverage and photographs that place the car convincingly within a particular location.
I’ve photographed automotive projects for brands including Ford, Rolls-Royce, Lexus, Toyota and Turo, working across everything from test tracks and automotive events to city locations and remote landscapes.
A large part of the job is understanding what the photographs need to do afterwards — and creating enough variety during the shoot to give the client useful options.
A speculative location shoot with the Lexus UX in Glencoe, exploring how landscape and location can shape the character of automotive photography.
Finding the right location for the car
Location can completely change the way a vehicle is perceived.
Sometimes the client already has a location or event in place. On other projects I can collect the vehicle and work independently, taking it to a location that suits the car and the brief.
That might mean finding strong contemporary architecture in London, an open road or dramatic landscape elsewhere in the UK, or working within a test track or automotive facility.
I enjoy that part of the process. My background in advertising art direction means I tend to think about the relationship between the vehicle, location, composition and eventual use of the photograph rather than treating the surroundings simply as a backdrop.
The aim isn't just to find somewhere spectacular. The location has to make sense for the vehicle and for the story the client wants the photographs to tell.
Bespoke Defender 90 photographed on location in central London for marketing, website and social media use.
Creating automotive photography for PR
PR photography often has slightly different requirements from a single advertising image.
For Ford UK, I photographed the Ranger Raptor at Abingdon Airfield, creating a mixture of static and action photography for PR, website and social media use.
Ford Ranger Raptor at Abingdon Airfield, part of a set created for Ford UK for PR, website and social media use.
Action photography from the Ford Ranger Raptor shoot, adding movement and variety to the wider set of PR and marketing images.
Working with a vehicle like the Raptor meant showing both the design of the car and some of its character. Alongside cleaner static photographs, the shoot included moving images that gave the finished set considerably more energy and gave Ford different options for different channels.
I've also photographed the Ford Focus RS at Dunton Test Track. Working in a genuine automotive environment created another kind of opportunity: the vehicle itself, driving photography and photographs involving the driver could all form part of the same set.
Ford Focus RS at Dunton Test Track, photographed for Ford UK for PR, website and social media use.
Including the driver alongside the Ford Focus RS created an additional set of people-focused images for PR and brand communications.
For a PR or communications team, that variety can be more useful than returning with twenty versions of essentially the same hero photograph.
From PR photography to advertising campaigns
Not every automotive brief is primarily about press coverage.
My work for Turo included photography for a wider advertising and marketing campaign, with vehicles including the Audi TT, Jeep Wrangler and Porsche Cayenne photographed at Tobacco Dock in London.
Audi TT photographed for Turo at Tobacco Dock in London as part of an advertising and marketing campaign.
The shoot needed a broader mixture of imagery. As well as the cars themselves, I photographed lifestyle moments and interiors so the finished library could work across advertising, marketing and social media rather than feeling like a conventional vehicle catalogue.
Lifestyle and interior photography created as part of the wider Turo campaign, giving the client imagery beyond the exterior vehicle shots.
That distinction is important.
A car can be photographed beautifully but still leave a marketing team without enough variety to build a campaign around it. When I'm shooting, I'm continually looking for the additional frames — details, people, context, interiors and alternative compositions — that make the final set more useful.
Interiors, details and the experience of the vehicle
The exterior hero image is often the obvious photograph, but interiors and details can be just as important for press and marketing.
With an automotive shoot I will normally look beyond the overall vehicle and consider the elements that help describe its design and character.
Range Rover Evoque interior photographed on the Isle of Skye, using the surrounding landscape through the windscreen as part of the image.
An interior can be photographed very cleanly, but it can also retain a sense of place. A Range Rover Evoque I photographed on the Isle of Skye is a good example: the interior is the subject, while the landscape visible through the windscreen becomes part of the photograph.
It gives the client something quite different from the exterior images while still belonging naturally to the same story.
Automotive photography for manufacturers and brand communications
Some projects sit somewhere between PR, events and wider brand communications.
I photographed the Rolls-Royce 103EX at Goodwood, producing imagery for PR, website and social media use. The environment and people around the vehicle were part of the story, rather than something that needed to be excluded from every frame.
Rolls-Royce 103EX at Goodwood, photographed as part of a set for PR, website and social media use.
Similarly, photographing Lexus vehicles at the Drive & Dine Theatre and Toyota at Bestival meant working around live branded environments and creating photographs that showed the vehicle within the wider activity.
Toyota C-HR GR photographed within the Bestival environment at Lulworth Castle for website and PR use.
These situations require a slightly different approach from taking a car away for a dedicated location shoot. You have less control over what is happening around you, so it becomes a matter of finding strong compositions quickly while still showing the context of the event and brand.
Giving a vehicle a sense of place
At the other end of the scale, having the freedom to take a vehicle to a carefully chosen location opens up completely different possibilities.
I've photographed cars and 4x4s in locations ranging from New Bond Street and the City of London to Scotland, Yorkshire, Dorset and the Lake District.
One of the photographs in this series shows a Lexus UX in Glencoe. This was a speculative image rather than a commissioned Lexus PR shoot, but it demonstrates the kind of location-led imagery I can create when there is freedom to take a vehicle somewhere specifically for photography.
Likewise, work with Bespoke Defenders has ranged from a Defender 90 photographed around New Bond Street to a Defender 110 at Wast Water in the Lake District.
The environment completely changes the character of the photography.
For a manufacturer or agency planning a launch, press campaign or new image library, deciding where the vehicle should be photographed can be as important as deciding how it should be photographed.
Bespoke Defender 110 photographed on location at Wast Water in the Lake District for marketing, website and social media use.
Building a useful automotive image library
The strongest automotive shoots tend to produce a body of work rather than one photograph.
Depending on the brief, I might be looking for hero images, front and rear three-quarter views, details, interiors, moving shots, environmental images, people and more spontaneous lifestyle photographs.
Not every client needs all of those things. The important part is understanding where the photography is going to be used and making sure the shoot produces the right balance.
That could be a tightly defined PR brief, a new vehicle launch, a set of press assets, ongoing marketing content or a broader advertising campaign.
I work directly with automotive brands as well as PR, advertising and marketing agencies, and can work from an established creative brief or help develop the photographic approach and locations where required.
Based in London, I work throughout the UK and internationally.