As my last blog post mentioned, I always wanted to try rolling shots of cars. Thanks to my friend who also wanted me to try it and his girlfriend/also my friend who was willing to drive my car while I took photos, I got to try it last Friday. We decided to do it in the morning, close to sunrise. This, plus the fact that the road we wanted to do this on, the State Route 87, is half an hour away from our houses, meant we had to wake up at 5am and still miss a good portion of the sunrise and the golden hour. But, after meeting in Fountain Hills, figuring out how our walkie-talkies worked (so we could communicate and I could tell my friend where to position himself relative to me), and driving out onto the freeway, we got settled in. I moved to the back seat and first learned that sticking half my body out the window of a car moving at 50 miles per hour really wasn't that bad. However, the wind on my sinuses was, so I could only stick out for 30 seconds at a time when facing away from the wind, 15 seconds max when facing towards the wind. After quite a few horrible shots and subsequent adjustments, I got into a groove.
It always amazes me how it only takes around an hour of driving to go from a desert landscape to a mountain/forest landscape. As much as I love the desert, it gets monotonous after a while; nothing but flat, sandy, landscape with low-growth shrubbery and cacti. As we drove, it was interesting for me to see the transition as cacti became replaced with trees, and blank mountains were replaced with mountains filled with green bushes and trees. It made for some nice backdrops to the photos.
I have to say, the road was super nice. Someday I'll have to come back just to drive on it. I was kind of bummed to not be able to drive, but hey, it's for art.
Even though it was only a short stint up north and about 20 minutes of walking around, it was certainly a nice change of pace from the city/desert. The air was crisp, the sun wasn't burning a hole through my face, and it was quiet, except for the sounds of birds and insects. Even though I've always preferred urban environments, there was a very strong allure I felt towards the less tamed mountains. I certainly wish to come back here sometime for more shoots.
On the way back, we decided to get some shots with the headlights up, just for fun. Headlights go up, headlights go down.
It was certainly a fun experience. I have to say, part of the reason why I enjoyed it was because of the walkie-talkies. We could talk to each other at a whim, as if we were just sitting and hanging out, except the seats we were sitting on moved at 60mph. I definitely wish to have more of these kind of shoots.
Here are some digitally edited photos, these made for some very nice sharp, high-contrast images:
Monochrome was pretty nice too:
And here are the four images from the other blog post:
