I recently had one of my favorite shoots to date! It may surprise you to read that someone who loves shooting tiny babies and weddings would have so much fun shooting at a car shop. But this was right up my alley! My background in photography is much more “fine art” and still life than portraits so this was like a trip back to college when I used to explore old buildings and random properties. I used to just pull over and crawl around in old barns and buildings to take pictures of stuff like this! It’s a wonder I never had a roof fall on my head!
Anyway. I have photographed Matt’s family 3 times. His two older girls, then a maternity session when they were expecting their third baby and finally their newest baby, Maeve, when she was born. Matt’s wife, Erin, contacted me a while back to see if I would be interested in doing a shoot at his business, Sports Car Restoration. Yes! I was very excited to have the opportunity to do something different and something that would tap into my creative side in a way I hadn’t for years.
To be honest I have hundreds of favorites images from this shoot and it is going to be so hard to choose a reasonable number for my blog! The work that Matt and his guys do at SCR is just phenomenal. My husband and I watch some shows on the History channel that highlight some of the work that goes into restoring old cars, machines and bikes. It was incredible to see some of this stuff in person! When Matt walked me around the shop pointing out different machines and equipment it was easy to see how much pride he takes in his work and how much he enjoys what they do.
I started off by just walking around and grabbing detail shots of tools and car parts and machines. We’ll start with some of those:
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One thing that was neat to learn about was how old many of the tools and machines are that Matt uses. They don’t make things like they used and to find some of this equipment to add to his shop arsenal can be like finding treasure. The quality of the tools and machinery from decades ago is unmatched today.
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It was also very cool to see the amount of detail and precision that goes into creating custom pieces for a car rebuild. Matt was working a bit on the back of this car while I was there and had made a kind of flexible mold using masking tape.
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You can see the “mold” on the top left and Matt working on bending the metal on the right. He is attaching the piece after smoothing it out in the photo on the bottom left.
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To give you an idea of what they sometimes start with:
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Cars are often stripped down to their bare bones before the guys put them back together piece by piece–often fashioning new custom-built pieces as seen above.
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To think that when they are further along in the process they look like these:
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I told you I had a lot of favorite images from this shoot! Here are a few of the guys at work:
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And because I think this post could go on forever why don’t I just shut up and show a few more favorites:
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Matt, the owner.
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Phew. There are lots more I would love to share but I fear I have already overdone it a bit! This was a really exciting project and a fun change from what I am used to shooting. Thanks, Matt, and all the guys at the shop for letting me hang around all day. (And for letting me make them pose for headshots!)
What a cool job you guys have. Your own version of art, for sure.