Behind the lens with Luke Gilbertson

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To me a natural environment (be it residential or industrial) suits a car more than a studio. Saying that, I always aim to compose images as if the car has been purposefully placed rather than as a shot I stumbled across. I like my photos to be clean, so I don’t use flashes or any other light source. Instead, I use natural, ambient light to determine the photo’s look. If the light is wrong, I sit back and do my best to make it work. In this way, the light dictates a car’s angles, not me. Recently I’ve been working a lot at night too, and that’s a great challenge.

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I’ve always been a petrolhead. To me a car needs to have a soul, and this also needs to shine through in my work. Supercars are often flamboyant but that doesn’t mean they immediately capture my heart. I’m only 22 but I was lucky enough, for example, to run a 1971 Mercedes 300SEL 3.5 for a year. It was gorgeous, and steeped in forty years of history. Oh, and it had a V8 too! I loved it.

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I’ve invested a lot in new equipment (particularly lenses) to really get a sense of depth, as well as add detail and clarity to my work. It sounds basic but I’ve worked really hard to get the colour of my photos right, to get closer to how the eye sees them and how the car was intended to look. Often I’ll even google the car to make sure the colour is as accurate as possible. I also spend a lot of time cleaning the images, to highlight the idea of ‘placing’ a car rather than ‘finding’ it. It all takes a lot of time, and now I could probably use most of my equipment with my eyes closed!

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I’ve learnt a lot in the last six months. Mostly I’ve taught myself, but I enjoy learning and experimenting. I also think it’s important to compare my work to that of other photographers. Taking a picture that’s already been done by someone else is pointless, but often there are technical aspects which I can learn from and use in my own way in future shots.