University Photographic Project HELP

[Tornado GTI]

 HI all

I would be very appreciated if you could help me.

I am in my final year of university studying photographic art, I have to create one piece of work that will last a year to complete and then exhibit. For this I have decided to focus and turn my personal work into a project. I have been photographing the modifying and tuning scene for many years now mostly German metal.

I will carry on photographing meets and car shows through out next season but wanted to start by getting some first hand research from the people that are apart of the scene / car culture.

If you could spend a little bit of your time by telling me what your thoughts are on car culture and why it is so attractive to you.

Also here are some questions I would like to know your view on e.g.

1. Can a modified car be classed as Art?

2. What does the modifying scene mean to you?

3. Do you think the scene is male dominated? If so why?

4. What is so appealing about car shows, and what is your reason for attending? eg. Inspiration, meeting other car enthusiast etc. 

5. Why do you modify your chosen car? Is it for a spot on the cover of a magazine? e.g. PVW etc.


Thanks hope to here back from you.

[bobotheclown]

Why don't you focus on the time aspect. Take a picture of your car at the same focal length and distance every day. This will give you 365 photos of the same subject in the exact same position in different locations and you can make a time lapse style montage so that the background moves and not the car. it could even be a paper flip book. You can expand on the notion that though the car is designed to move it is stationary and the thing moving is the background. juxtaposition of an object that should be moving but isnt but is moving through time. better yet instead of your car get yourself a model of a delorean and photograph that.  time machine, innit

Or you can have a massive canvas with all the photos arranged so that each season is clearly shown through the colours of the background. For example for the winter months photo your car in front of cool colours like blues. For spring and summer photovgraph it front of greens and yellows. For autumn photograph it front of browns bronze and golds and arrange them in a circular fashion to denote the circle of life type thing/clock

also you might want to video blog it for a "behind the scenes" extra feature explaining your choice of locations and the like with a shot of each day's newspaper

[The Mighty Elvi]

http://www.photographyblogger.net/time-lapse-photography-in-your-car/


I would do something like this ^:

But, I would change it so the camera is fixed so you can't see the driver, just the dash and outside.

Then, I would take a pic every day on a road that I travel every day.

But I would take the next pic a little further down the road, and so on.

The desired effect being that it would take 365 days to reach my destination, and I can see all the seasons along the route.  Be even more awesome if you could take them at different times, so the 365 days is also dawn to dusk.

Hope that makes sense.

Jonathan.

[bobotheclown]

the dawn to dusk bit is a fantastic idea

[Jay]

1. Can a modified car be classed as Art? If a tonne of banana's dump in Trafalgar Square is art, anything can be.

2. What does the modifying scene mean to you? www.edition38.com

3. Do you think the scene is male dominated? No. If so why? www.edition38.com

4. What is so appealing about car shows, and what is your reason for attending? Seeing chicks in short skirts and boobs popping out their tops.

5. Why do you modify your chosen car? I don't. Much.

[Adam]

1. Can a modified car be classed as Art? Yes

2. What does the modifying scene mean to you? Personal touch, nothing OTT. Subtle

3. Do you think the scene is male dominated? If so why? I would say majority is male but there a few classy females out there

4. What is so appealing about car shows, and what is your reason for attending? Meeting up with mates. Volksfest for example, drinking having a laugh. Talking about cars is not what is on everyones lips at shows like that. Over all I think its a social aspect and showing off your creation

5. Why do you modify your chosen car? Is it for a spot on the cover of a magazine? e.g. PVW etc. Personal touch, I will modify my car the way I want to not what the craze is

see this video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3l9FwnWyjM&feature=feedf

[mcgee9t2]

1. Can a modified car be classed as Art? Yeah, imo art is classed as personall expression, and you can express your self through your car to an extent.

2. What does the modifying scene mean to you? friends, socialising, having a laugh, helping people out.

3. Do you think the scene is male dominated? If so why? sort of, because of the amount of girls who dont really want to get there hands dirty and chip there nails, however a large amount of girls are out there

4. What is so appealing about car shows, and what is your reason for attending? eg. Inspiration, meeting other car enthusiast etc.   same as question 2 and also to admire peoples work

5. Why do you modify your chosen car? Is it for a spot on the cover of a magazine? e.g. PVW etc. to add my own touch to the car

[mcgee9t2]

also not sure how handy you are with a paint brush ect, but could do something like thisbrushing off the dirt
again not sure how dirty your car gets ect. you might be one of these people that clean it every weekend in which case you proberbly wouldnt be able to do something like this.

or you could focus on a certain part. or maybe parts.

or you could do something along the lines of personalising a car part to suit your mood of that week or month or to reflect things thats happening that month/week i.e a lad i know is getting his gf to draw on all his wheels heres one thats half finished
  however you could do something to match the mood/season i.e now you could draw a autumy type scene with trees loosing flowers ect then put the wheel on the car, maybe drive to a wooded type area and have some leafs around the wheel then take a picture showing the wheel as the main part but having the trees ect in the back ground, then maybe next month a sort of christmasy theme with snow flakes or presents ect then have maybe a snow man in the background of the picture and take a picture of the car, again close up to the wheel i.e this kind of shot but with something seasonal in the back ground. just an idea i think could be quite cool

[bobotheclown]

girl with a peral earring by vermeer if you were interested.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girl_with_a_Pearl_Earring

[Tornado GTI]

Hi all

Thanks for all the comments so far, and thanks adam for the video. I really want to photograph the scene and show people what happens at meets and shows, i think its funny how we all just stand round looking at cars and planing things to do to our own cars. i like how when we see a slammed VW on the road we have this connexion that we are apart of the same crowd / culture.

i think that some of the show locations e.g. ultimate dubs in telford start to bring something more to the images you start to see cars lined up with people walking round in a massive indoor space in some cases like an art gallery, it is also like a private gathering as from the outside no one really knows there are hundreds of enthusiasts looking at top class metal.

do you think images of our scene could be interesting to people that are not apart of it ? if images of our shows where put in a gallery space with artists, photographers and filmmakers all viewing them what do you think they would make of them ?