I’ve certainly enjoyed a varied career. In the ‘70s, when I first hung up my shingle, I shot hundreds of rock bands, weddings and portraits. Later I moved into fashion, then commercial advertising, producing images for industrial, food and aerospace clients. I still work with many of them, athletes for the Dairy Association (Got Milk?) being one of many. It’s a little known fact (because no one really gives a damn), but I’m responsible for developing the dairy recipe that we use in Minnesota for the milk moustache. Yes, it’s a dairy product, but if I told you what it was, well, you’d have to go bye-bye.

There have been several subjects over the years that have tweaked my creative genes; the figure, dance and heavy automotive being among them (yeah, I know that doesn’t quite compute). Recently, I sat down to lunch with a good friend, Paul Hartley, a photographer who specializes in heavy automotive photography (http://www.AddMedia.com). I’d written about Paul in my book “Canon DSLR: The Ultimate Photographer’s Guide” and I can tell you he’s one dedicated soul. His travel kit would cost at least a grand in luggage fees at an airport (which explains why he so often travels by car, towing a trailer).

I’m a “Look at that huge machine-isn’t that cool?” guy while Paul is more of a “Let’s drop the transmission and see what’s inside” guy. We’ve decided we’re going to pool our resources and create a stock photo website devoted to such photography. We have no idea if it will be successful, but it’s a niche market that we’re in a great position to accommodate. Between us we have thousands of images. Here’s one I shot in Oklahoma.

While at lunch, Paul mentioned a shoot he had arranged at a nearby International dealer, where he had a shot list he wanted to accomplish. Like most of us, his business has suffered with the recession, and he wanted to make the most of his off-time. I volunteered to join him, mostly because I enjoy hanging out with him but also because two shooters can produce more, and with differing points of view, than one.

On the day of the shoot, we gathered at the dealer’s garage. Between us we must have hauled in 300 pounds of gear, which we set down a few yards from the shooting bay.

After we’d set a large, 4×6 softbox over the exposed tractor engine on a custom stand that Paul had had built for him, and placed other lights around the truck the dealer had provided for us, Paul began setting up his camera. Paul likes to shoot RAW, and also likes to shoot tethered to his computer. I prefer to shoot jpeg so I won’t need to process files after the shoot. The primary difference, aside from the (very) slight quality difference of RAW over jpeg, when the RAW files are processed “as is” is that the RAW files, like an original film negative, can be processed in numerous ways. I like RAW; it has its place. I just don’t use it very often because I don’t wish to expend the additional time to process files after doing an edit on them.

I set one light to the side of the upended hood and started shooting portraits of the guys who’d been hired to model as drivers. Paul was still setting up, so I took great pleasure in walking up to him and whispering in his ear, “I’ve got two shots done. How’re you doin?”

Well, I could ramble on about this shoot, but it was only great fun. While Paul does this stuff quite often, being in a service garage was new to me. The noise, the smells, the light, all came together. Between the two of us we racked up a good 50 images that may or may not have value as stock photography. That’s the beauty, and the risk, of shooting stock. One image might make thousands, the rest next to nothing. Here’s a shot of Paul working with one of the models. Look behind them and you’ll get an idea of how much stuff we dragged in there.