Good ‘ol editorial work. I’ve said before that commercial/advertising work makes me tall, and editorial/lifestyle photography keeps me sharp. This assignment for the Porsche Club of America is the epitome of going back to my roots and using just a camera with natural light. I love shooting for the PCA because the only instructions I get from them are “here’s the owner’s number of the Porsche 911S, now go take great pics”. But this assignment was exceptionally special.
How exceptional? Let’s list them shall we:
1. The car is possibly the best example in the world of a 1967-72 preserved Porsche (Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance Best in Class – Sports and GT Cars (1967 – 1972)). Before you balk, there are actually hard-driven miles on the odometer.
2. The owner was willing to drive the car to a location I requested.
3. Said location is my FAVORITE local spot for photography.
4. Weather is unpredictable in the South, and this day the weather was abnormally perfect.
5. The owners were extremely accommodating with the film crew… an increasing rarity.
6. A bittersweet end to my Canon 5D MKIII, a farewell shoot before switching to the Sony A7RII.
Basically my buddy Will Keown and I had a fun, relaxed, beautiful 12hrs with one of the finest examples of a 1960’s Porsche, in one of the most picturesque areas in the Appalachian mountains. To learn more about this special car, read a few words from the writer Tom M’Guinness and enjoy the comprehensive video by Will Keown below:
“This all-original 1967 911S was nearly perfect when PCA member Henry Wilkinson found it a few years ago. It was the prized possession of its original owner for more than 45 years, but Wilkinson didn’t want a nearly perfect one-owner car. He wanted a perfect one-owner car. With his sights set on winning the Amelia Island concours, Wilkinson assembled a dream team and got to work.”
We can’t have a Clint Davis blog post without having something special at the end. How about some before/after shots? I’ll reiterate that these images are all naturally lite. Here are the results after making selects, running them through Adobe Lightroom, and nit-picking tiny details in Photoshop. The key is to enhance the images natural realism, yet not cross the line of looking fake. Location, location, location. I will say the RAW editing capabilities of CameraRaw and Lightroom have come a LONG way. It’s amazing what kind of detail is able to be pushed out of a Canon file.
See some more select Porsche work on my newly redesigned website. Plenty more cars from Stuttgart to come!