The smart technology showing up on the 2013 models does nearly everything but let you go back in time and visit your parents’ prom.

And that means new challenges for car photography.

Images of rich colors and sleek lines aren’t enough anymore.

Effective photography has to show placement, dimension and detail to communicate key features to customers. But it still has to make the car look attractive.

Consider how manufacturers are applying smartphone concepts to their cars.

“Many automakers in Europe and North America have flooded the markets with free apps, focusing on areas such as customer relationship management and breakdown assistance,” the International Business Times reports. “Value-added apps such as remote start/stop are also available now. The apps can put the vehicle in complete remote terminal fashion with controls, using vehicle human machine interface.”

Sounds exciting. But how do you make an app look good for a photo shoot?

Leave that one to us. The subtleties of today’s automotive features might make our job tougher, but buyers still expect to see what new models and gadgets look like.

After all, your customers didn’t just pull in from the ’80s … and as sophisticated as they’re getting, the cameras on those phones won’t help here.
Contact us if we can help.

Ironically, the Rochester, New York based company that was the early adopter of digital cameras from the 1970’s to 1990’s, according to the Los Angeles Times, Kodak has been undercut in recent years by foreign competitors and technological advances — particularly smartphone cameras.

As digital photography technology got better, less expensive and user friendly, the 132-year-old company failed to keep up. A classic case of the “Innovator’s Dilemma”?

Given the memories associated with American inventor Thomas Edison, the development of the famous Brownie camera, and of course Paul Simon’s 1973 hit “Kodachrome”, which immortalized another Kodak film innovation, it’s understandable that we’re all pausing a moment.

Kodak’s role in helping car photography become as sophisticated as it has is undeniable.

Everything changes, however — including, of course, our industry.

Today, technological advances allow us to maximize our individual talents to create images that inform and inspire. And they make the art easier to integrate in other media that display and promote the finest automobiles in the world. For example, our interactive media solutions would not have been possible with film based photography.

Like the cars we portray, our tools may change with time, but the basic goals are the same. Car photography engages your customer’s emotions.

What is your Kodachrome memory?

Unofficial estimates say the Chinese government spent $15 billion last year on high-end automobiles, motorward.com reports.

In recent years, luxury car manufacturers have increased their showroom presence and marketing in China, which has a population of nearly 1.4 billion and the potential to dwarf the markets of Europe, or the United States.

Wealthy communists, meantime, are already enjoying the ride:

• A chocolate-brown Bentley Mulsanne with all-gold trim — rumored to be worth $560,000 — is often seen parked outside communist party headquarters in Beijing, motorward.com says.

• Chinese police favor Bentleys, too, but the Shanghai force settled on 22 BMW 5 Series sedans to use during the 2010 World Expo. And officers wanting to transport their children safely to and from school lean toward Mercedes-Benz SUVs and Porsche Cayenne’s, according to the website.

• The most popular car of all among party officials? The Audi A6 – priced between $50,000 and $100,000. More than 20,000 have been sold in China so far.

Bureaucrats’ benefits, however, have drawn some criticism.

“So prevalent is the purchase of expensive foreign-manufactured cars,” motorward.com says, “many activists are now photographing excess and uploading pictures of government-owned cars to private websites and social media networks in an effort to encourage more accountability from civil servants.”

Our clients include makers of some of the finest cars in the world — contact us if we can meet any of your needs.

And at Detroit’s 2012 North American International Show, the rest of the automotive industry, the media and the public has been getting some of their first live looks at this year’s new models.

Now everyone has been getting to see if the cars are as sleek in person as they are in all those advance photos.
In this year’s line-up, there’s something to catch everyone’s eye.

Business Insider is focusing on concept cars and production cars, while websites like autoblog.com’s top five are drawn to more practical models from various companies.

Business Insider likes the look of the Lexus LF-LC Coupe, Honda’s new NSX super car and Toyota’s NS-4 plug-in hybrid.

Motoeauthority.com’s favorites, on the other hand, include the 2012 Tesla Model S, the 2013 Hyundai Veloster Turbo and the 2013 Cadillac ATS. The site will also stop by the Mercedes-Benz booth, where the company is showcasing a new SL Roadster and two E-Class hybrids.

And those are just a select few of the models on display this year —as we said, these are busy days.

We’re never too busy to talk about car photography, though, so contact us if we can put our professional skills to work for you.

Looking for a way to celebrate its 100 years in Britain, Ford commissioned a pair of European fashion designers to incorporate a Ford Focus — or at least parts of one — into a photo shoot, MLive.com reports in a new post.

The result? A head-turning spread featuring 2011 Miss Scotland Jennifer Reoch in an elegant Edwardian dress and necklace … and lots of shiny, red car parts.

The designers are Judy Clark of Scotland and Katherine Hawkins of Britain. Hawkins doesn’t even drive.

“The massive red rear lights were a bit of a challenge,” Clark admits in her blog. “I sawed off the back section with a hack saw to shed some bulk and weight, then drilled holes in top section attaching wire and kilt straps so they could be clipped on and off. I attached the lights and the entire bustle to an industrial sized leather belt to carry the weight.”

But it was worth it.

The pictures are getting attention on both sides of the ocean and across the web, including in a YouTube video.

Who knows? Clark jokes, maybe Lady Gaga will borrow one of those taillights for her next video.

It all goes to show the key role creative teams and skilled photographers can play in promoting car lines.

The new Dart comes with a six-speed dual clutch transmission or a nine-speed automatic that could push fuel economy to 40 miles per gallon, Motor Trend reports.

But the pictures caught the magazine’s eye first, writer Christian Seabaugh notes in a new post for the magazine.

“We were teased earlier this week by photos of the sleek new 2013 Dodge Dart, but Dodge conveniently left out some important details as it prepares for its launch. Key among those details were fuel economy figures, and transmission options,” Seabaugh writes.

Interesting — and telling — points, we’d say.

First, quality photography gets cars noticed. Even among automotive aficionados like the folks at Motor Trend.

Second, proper staging can even help a car that’s being presented as economically practical put its most stylish foot forward.

It’s another example of the value of involving car photography professionals.

By the way, the 2013 Dart, which will be built in Chrysler’s Belvidere, Ill., plant, will debut at the 2012 North American International Auto Show in Detroit next month, Motor Trend reports. And as the pictures prove, it’s a head-turner.

Contact us if you’d like professional expertise with your next automotive marketing campaign.

That’s why they turn to car photography providers who can show they have high-quality skills — and can show some discretion.

As competitive and image-conscious as the worldwide automotive industry has become, security and spying have become secretive spinoff businesses all their own.

Car spies do their best to sneak photos of yet-to-be-released models while automakers go to extreme lengths to keep the wraps on their new products.

“The stakes,” Bloomberg Businessweek reports in a detailed article, “are huge.”
Automakers, of course, don’t want competitors to steal their intellectual property. But they’re also guarding current-model sales.

“There’s a school of thought that says once you show the new (version of a vehicle), it could impact sales of the current one, even if it’s a few years out,” explains Terry Rhadigan, director of GM’s global product development team.

Here’s how seriously car companies take security, the Bloomberg article says:
“They cloak vehicles during transport. They create ‘mules,’ cars with updated running gear hidden under the body of a current model. And they use camouflage — darkened trim, grafted prosthetics, black vinyl patches, or arresting paint patterns.”

It’s as dead serious as a John Le Carré novel. But it’s the kind of precaution and precision that we understand — and use. Contact us if you need an ally.

The star of this year’s Tokyo Motor Show can change its paint scheme in the blink of an eye. And with a simple upload from a smart phone or computer, the exterior can light up with a photo, a company logo or even a video.

Wow. That will take some calibrating.

The possibilities for the car’s appearance seem endless, 3D-Car-Shows.com notes — anything from keying in a different color every day of the week to adorning it with flowers for your wife’s birthday or pictures of your pets.


For businesses, the advantages are obvious: Phone numbers, awards, daily specials — just upload them onto the doors or back bumper. And that’s not even counting practical applications like posting missing-person alerts or warnings to other drivers about approaching road hazards. For photographers, though?

Just as limitless.

Professional stock shooters could capture the Fun VII’s rounded curves and driver perks (the futuristic interior features are a whole other subject) — and they could effectively demonstrate the benefits of the car’s chameleon-like exterior.

Perhaps more than most hot models, a car like this underscores the need for effective and creative photography. This is a good thing, because izmostudio loves a challenge.

Engadget:Read More

When developing content for a client, you are hired to make them and their product standout from the competition, so following the crowd with cheap car stock photos is not going to help you win their business in the future.  Just because something is cheap does not make it better, it means everyone else is using it.  So just like a car conveys individual personality, so should the images chosen to market the client’s project.

Here are 3 tips to choosing the right stock photography:

2. Rights/Releases – The rights associated with companies who take their own pictures are guaranteed as opposed to a generic company who takes photos from all types of photographers, the rights can become confusing and you could cause problems later because the original photographer may not have given permission for certain usage.

3. Membership/Database creation – If you foresee needing a large inventory of car photography, select a company that allows you to create an affordable database, so that if a client needs something quickly you already have access to the image.

Seeing a photo of our dream car lets our imagination take us to another world…. driving in the mountains, hugging curves in a sports car, accelerating at mind-blowing speeds on the autobahn, somewhere other than where we are in the moment.  We think this quote sums it up:

Photography, as we all know, is not real at all. It is an illusion of reality with which we create our own private world.-Arnold Newman

Here at izmostock we are ready to help you, or your clients, create illusions with compelling and original car photography.

Contact us to learn more!

Sleek lines on a fancy late-model European sports car, backlit by an incredible sunset. Or maybe it’s a classic muscle car that pumps you up; lit up with bright summer sunshine and parked at the beach.

But did you know there’s psychology at work in that picture you’re entranced with?

This October 27, 2011 article by Derek Thompson on theatlantic.com showcases the differences between a “thinking” advertisement vs. a “feeling” one:

Imagine two commercials for a new light beer. The first ad begins with a super-zoom of the luxurious, golden liquid tumbling into a tall clear glass. There is a man’s voice: “All of the taste you want in a rich beer. Only half the calories.”

The second ad starts in a bar. As a gaggle of unshaven men with floppy bellies are circling two beautiful women, like fat buzzards, a well-built man in a svelte black suit approaches the bar and orders a light beer. The women hear him and turn. He looks back. “Make that three,” he tells the barkeep. The slogan appears: “Light is the new strong.”

You can probably guess where I’m going here. The first ad relied on facts. The second relied on emotional influence. Advertising execs and researchers commonly say that all ads are either rational or emotional. Of course, this is a gross oversimplification, and everybody knows it. Rational ads can still be beautiful, and beauty influences. Sexy ads can be logical, and logic persuades.

Regardless of the angle your ad is using to attract customers, your car photography will affect the customer in a way you may not be able to control. The most successful ads play on our desires, both conscious and unconscious.

In the end, which ad type is better: rational or affective? Hard to say, and even the psychology community may not be able to solve this puzzle.