Photography from the MIRA proving ground

hello world!

I feel the need, the need for speed.

Wow, it's been seriously busy for the last few months. Apologies for not posting on here for a while, so it's high time time to post a few updates.

Recently I spend nearly two weeks shooting for global tyre manufacturer 'Giti' (they own a good many brands including GT Radial and Primewell to name a couple). The car and truck photography took place at the world famous MIRA (Motor Industry Research Association) proving ground. This shoot involved photographing the tyres of cars, truck, SUV's and 4x4 vehicles testing tyres on multiple terrains. Clients of Giti were invited to test the tyres at the experience day at MIRA.

MIRA has a comprehensive number of proving tracks and surfaces, but over the period of the shoot we featured wet handling, wet circles (skid pan), off road and rough terrain surfaces, dry handling and the high speed track. Speeds around these tracks varied from 10mph (off road) to nearly 200mph (high speed track), so choosing the right shutter speed and aperture combination to provide sharp images with a small amount of panning blur was difficult when moving from one track to another. I had the great fortune of working with the professional Giti drivers, so a little communication with them prior to starting the shoot, they were able to guide me to where the best vantage points were likely to be and to where on the track the tyres were likely to show their best grip or handling potential.

I find this type of automotive photography exciting and challenging due to the nature of the products on show, the images need to be dynamic and covey a feeling of speed, but there's a very fine line between blurred 'cool' and blurred 'unusable', so setting up the camera and being in position to capture the right moment requires experience, good timing and pan technique.

Here's a few photographs from at the proving ground. I'd always love to hear your feedback, so feel free to share and comment below.

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