Why Is This So Difficult? Why?

It’s no big deal that there’s a lot of bad automotive photography out there. So what, you can rebuild an engine blindfolded but you’re not so handy with the digital camera? It doesn’t make you a bad person. But one rule of thumb that seems to me the most straightforward way to avoid ruining a photo of your ride: get the whole car in the shot. I’m no photographic genius myself, but this seems absolutely basic. Yet you’d be surprised how many people out there just don’t grasp this simple principle—even the pro photographers who cover shows for us sometimes have to be reminded that posting a picture of a car with the front clip clipped off, or the wheels missing, is like hanging up a group portrait on your wall that looks like this. It’s one thing if you’re going for something arty, or doing a detail closeup of some interesting feature on the vehicle—sure, those can turn out beautifully. But when it’s clear that you’ve intended to photograph "the car," and it’s just not all there, the result is like fingernails on a blackboard. Read on…

The sloppiness is especially baffling when the purpose of the photograph in question is to sell the car, but photos taken for ads on eBay and Craigslist are far from immune to terrible photography. You’d think sellers would want to make their cars look good, wouldn’t you? Take this eBay listing for an otherwise decent-looking Avanti: not a single photo in this extensive gallery contains the whole car, with the arguable exception of the two head-on shots. What’s the excuse for this? Sometimes it’s not the easiest thing to contain a whole car within your frame: I’m guessing that some people just feel overwhelmed by how big and awkwardly-shaped cars can be. Or maybe they’re beholden to the primitive belief that since their camera is just so much smaller than the car, there’s just no way they can fit the whole thing inside. Understandably, sometimes a vehicle is housed in the cramped quarters of a garage or there’s immovable fixtures that keep you from getting far enough away from it to photograph it properly. Still, in the vast majority of cases, any difficulty you’re experiencing in getting the car in the shot can be instantly remedied by taking one giant step or three baby steps BACK. If this isn’t possible, you can also clock your camera a few degrees to the left or right to get a diagonal shot—not only can it look cool, but sometimes a car will better fit a frame corner-to-corner than side-to-side. There’ve been numerous times that I’ve wanted to feature a CarDomain member’s ride in the blog but the one well-lit or nice-looking picture on the page has a big chunk of the car missing so I have to pass. I can’t stress this enough: get the whole car in the shot. Stop breaking my heart!