Evans Garage

Evans Garage
Originally uploaded by Cody Lee Dopps

This assignment was honestly a little tough for me and I really didn't think that I was going to be able to pull it off. Is that always the way it will be? I mean, you're asked to go out and photograph "something" and sometimes you have no idea what that "something" is supposed to be. Events are my least favorite things to shoot because once it's over it's not the best form to ask if they would do whatever it was over again because your camera didn't focus on the right thing.

Luckily, with the Evans garage I was able to come back to the garage a couple times. Plus, it was also very handy to work so closely with the layout artist (or designer, I don't know what they are called these days). I mean, I like to find my own vision and whatnot, but it's so valuable to have someone else to say "this is exactly what we need". You can kinda help shape the story right there.

The other major challenge that I faced with this assignment is that I don't really know that much about cars. Or care. Sorry. Wait, why am I apologizing? I don't. All the guys in high school that were into cars were total pricks. Shallow, macho douche-bags. So I never cared for cars. As long as my truck runs, I'm pretty content. So when I came to shoot this, I was very happy that I had people tell me which cars were important to get. For me, I wanted to get the Delorian. You can see it in this photo, it's the second one in. I was all, "whoa, a DeLorian." But it turns out that without all the time travel stuff stuck to it, it's kinda a goofy looking car. Anyway...

I took shot of most of these cars individually and to make sure I'd get it right I brought along a set of monolights. It was really my first time bringing the lights out. I haven't really used them before. It was neat but slightly puzzling because it's just more and more that you have to keep in control. But I'm glad that the Evans's were patient and wonderful to work with.