It’s been almost a year (eleven months to be precise) since an exhibition of vintage cars was held at the premises of the racecourse in Mumbai. Eleven months since I landed up there that late afternoon, my little Panasonic Lumix DMC-Tz25 that I sometimes – in place of my Canon EOS 5D – lug around. Ended up making images of what some people have described as “The most amazing photographs of Vintage Cars”. And you know what? I didn’t make a single image of a vintage car. Not one single one of a vintage car in its entirity.
Does that sound like a contradiction in terms? How does one go about making amazing photographs of vintage cars without photographing a car? Judge for yourself from the images below.
So what’s it about these photographs that’s so dramatically different from the countless other images of vintage cars to be found on the net? What makes them so visually appealing and so dramatic? The answer to those questions is that I didn’t see them as cars at all, and while all those other people there engaged themselves taking photographs of cars, I saw things differently. I got to the heart of the matter: the collection of patterns, lines, swirls, circles etc. – the very things that make vintage cars so beautiful. And in getting to the heart of the matter – learning to see the very essence of a subject, and at times seeing it differently is how one reveals the very heart and essence of anything and everything in photography. This, is is one of many things I teach in my From snapshots to Great Shots – The Art of Seeing Workshop