My FMP exhibition is now over and it's time to release my most recent shoot.

FMP, Extensive inspiration from Casey Dhnaram

Casey photographs for his own blog 'Shirtstuckedin'. The style of car culture he photographs in Japan entirely summarises the scene that originally sparked my interest in cars. Street drifting culture is incredibly tricky to get involved in, so when a photographer like Casey produces images so clear and dramatic, it's hard to find any clearer glimpse into the atmosphere of these often late night meets. I feel that if I can produce just one image anywhere near as fantastic as Casey's, I'd round off my FMP as a personal success!

3 Ideas for My Final Media Project

Main Idea

-Documentary/Street/Action

My current favourite idea for my FMP is to make contact with a group of street drifters to document the people involved and what they get up to. I would aim to capture the events in a very raw but stylized way. To organize shooting this project I am planning to take advantage of contacts I have made over the last couple of years photographing cars and meeting the owners. I have not yet produced a ‘documentary’ style shoot, but I feel I would be able to combine my experience photographing racing and drifting events to help capture the action and excitement of an underground street-drift meet-up. I would love to capture the ‘streeto’ scene that occurs weekly throughout the UK, but is only known by those entirely involved in the car community. Faces and number plates would be hidden as protection of the drivers, but being able to complete this shoot will still rely on the drivers being happy to involve me and be trusting enough for me to photograph them and take care of hiding their identity.

Alternate Idea 1

-Night Photography

Over the last year I have built a strong interest in long exposure night photography, and also included the style in my Location folder. If I was to take on this project idea I would hunt a location that would avoid as much light pollution as possible, then wait for a completely clear night to complete some extremely long exposures, capturing stars moving through the sky and lighting the entire scene as if it was day-light.

Alternate Idea 2

-Night/City Photography

As a temporary third idea I feel that I would enjoy capturing a lit up city at night, likely involving long exposure and movement of light. I feel that with a lengthy shoot and a bit of experimentation I would be able to capture some strong compositions that would appear strong as an exhibition piece.

Automotive Night Photography Shoot

As practice for an upcoming location project, I have been encouraging myself to practice my night photography, hoping to improve my images each time, ready for my final shoots.

A friend of mine who lives a distance away had been scouting around my local area on Google maps for potential car photography locations in anticipation for the next time he comes to meet me. Luckily he managed to stumble across 'Guy's Cliffe House' in Warwick.

With the location within a 5 minutes drive from home, I had to go check it out straight away. The building behind the pictured structure seems to be an events location, and the gate to the site was open for cars to enter. The small space in front of the structure was completely deserted, with no distracting light aside from a small floodlight lighting up the area from behind where I was shooting. This light can be seen in my images, and I attempted to use it to my advantage. I used my own car as a subject, since the location was so close to me, and I decided to try out the location at very short notice. I used my Sony a35 DSLR and my Samyang 14mm wide-angle for all of these images, with exposure times between 20 and 30 seconds.

After I was satisfied that I had shot the angles that I wanted, I was very pleased with the night's shoot so far. Highly self-motivated to shoot a few more images I continued another couple of minutes on the road to another location I had spotted while on Google maps; a small bridge over a dual carriageway, in such a place that would attract very little traffic, due to the route only leading to a few houses and a couple of farms. As I was already with my equipment and pumped to shoot more, I couldn't miss the opportunity to shoot long exposures of motorway style traffic.

I plan to return to these two locations at night on December 6th, with the aforementioned friend who is coming to see me for a couple of days. I will be photographing both our cars, potentially with another friend who may be joining us. I hope I can match and improve on the success I had with this short shoot.