Just keep shooting for fun!

At 14 you will struggle to find an insurance company willing to insure you for any sort of business insurance, without it a lot of work will be unavailable to you.

For example you can’t take a car out and shoot it somewhere for a restoration company, car sales company etc as your not old enough to drive and you wouldnt have the business insurance to cover you if you damaged it.

You can’t shoot motorsports as you need to be 18 to be trackside and you need £5 or £10 million PLI at most tracks now.

Just enjoy shooting everything, work towards being better all the time and once things will start to fall into place as you get old enough to be able to do these things.

I shoot cars on occasion, mostly for Turo.com. The demand for vehicle photography is quite low compared to other work (real estate and sporting events, I kinda stopped with portraiture).

You have potential, but it seems like you haven’t mastered your settings. Some photos have distracting foregrounds/backgrounds that could be solved with narrower depth of field (or shooting at a longer focal length, I like somewhere between 100-200mm). Some of the action shots aren’t shot at a high enough shutter speed to freeze the subject.

You should add some more interior shots. I’m a fan of this shot where you sit in the backseat and shoot the front dash.

You have some nice examples and a good eye, just consider that when you’re shooting a car, you want it to be the centerpiece. Nothing should be in the way or steer a viewer’s eye to something else. For instance the photo of the car coming out of the garage with lettering on the left, it’s distracting, crop the photo to make the car the focus. The lamborghini framed by leaves, right idea but it’s zoomed in too much. The leaves are blocking the driver’s door. Take out some books to understand the law of thirds.

Most of your stuff is really really good. And you being 14 should actually help a lot with promotion and all that, not a lot of people have these skills at this age. I myself am a 16 year old photographer and haven’t reached that level yet, I’m currently working on a website, so if you got any tips there that would be helpful.

Hi Reuben,

I’m a fulltime automotive photographer based in Australia, so I’m probably qualified to give you some feedback!

I’m going to start with the positives, your panning and car-car tracking stuff is good. You clearly are working on it and trying to get slow shutter speeds to really convey that motion. Your edits are nice and simple (and realistic) but still have your own style to them.

I’d say the biggest thing you need to work on is intent. You want to work with the big automotive brands? You need to show their product without other cars or distractions in the shot. There are plenty of shots in your portfolio that I see other photographers, other cars, other stuff in the shot.

When a company hires a photographer it’s because they are looking for someone who can promote their product and make it look special. So in my mind this means that the car is the hero, but remember it’s the brand too. For example - the tracking shot of the orange 911. It’s a nice shot, the shutter speed is nice and low, the wheels are blurred, and the car is sharp. BUT what brand is it? You’re a little broadside with your composition, you have to make sure that you can see that badge on the front.

Now into the short sharp nitty gritty of your portfolio.

-Ditch any photos that look like they are at a car meet

-Ditch any double ups (i.e the interior shot of the 911, I’d keep the vertical as the horizontal has too much external body in it.

-If the pan isn’t sharp get rid of it - mostly looking at the Lotus Emira and yellow 911

-Ditch the shot outside the dealership or swap it for one that has the words Porsche not cut off

-The red Lambo with the doors up should be your opening shot. Easily the best of them. I really like the idea of the one shot through the tree but I’d have gone lower to bring the foreground closer to the car and less of the top of the tree branches so they don’t overlay the car.

-The two shots of the Lambos by the castle(?) are more or less identical, ditch one and level the horizon in it. Try to get all the lines straight (horizon, castle wall etc etc)

In your portfolio though, I’d want to see more of a mix of images. I want to see action shots (tracking, panning), shots of the car in various angles (front, back, side profile), as well as smaller things like details of badges, wheels, engine shots. A car isn’t just what’s on the outside as well, show me that you can take photos of the interior, the screens, the seats, the details that the designers spent time on perfecting. Remember your are helping to sell a product and that includes all the bits that people use on the inside!

You’re doing good stuff, I used to run a small team of photographers doing automotive and your stuff is on par with them in some regards - but you still have a way to go including the points I mentioned above.

If you want to chase the commercial photography dream then look to what the brands actually use, follow commercial automotive photographers on instagram, use Behance and search “automotive photography”. Check out the magazine shooters (Aston Parrot, Mark Riccioni, Mark Fagleson, Olgan Kurdal). Even from Australia check out Alastair Brook, Teddy Airey, Cristian Brunelli, Chris Benny.

Look at the work they do, try to figure out what makes it good, then try to replicate it. Nothing wrong with finding your style through copying others.

There are places you could look like Upwork or Fiver for photo gigs or join a lot of photo groups and expand on social media. I see people looking for photographers all the time. I’d also ask prior clients to write a blurb for your site. You know a review with their name and date. You can also register your site with search engines and ask the same people to leave you a review there, like Google has. See if another local photographer will mentor you. They might be able to help get your name out there or at least teach you how to market yourself. Good luck, photography is so much fun and I hope you succeed!

You are doing awesome. Try applying your talents to other contexts.

looks like you already have the understanding of not just doing 90 degree photos from from or side, so excellent start. I’d try to explore more variety still of angles, high, low, and straight on (which will still be you kneeling for most cars). Also I’ve really enjoyed doing some detail pictures like the ones you did of the tail-lights. I bet you could explore that area a bit more.

My advice is to keep shooting and do your thing. You already ahead of most of us at 14 RE photography.

Patience is huge. You have some great shots in there. Sunrise and sunset are your friends. If at all possible shoot then. Study others to see what they’re doing. http://www.roephoto.com/ https://www.rochephoto.com/ https://www.imageaj.com/ https://trahanphoto.com/

Car to car is tough to do and dangerous. Wear a harness. A gimble or a gyro will help a ton.

For still shots get a good tripod and use it. A lot of the beautiful images you see of cars are a composite of multiple images and some have long shutter speeds because you’re shooting in lower light at f/16-ish.

For panning shots shoot about 20 more than you think you need. Play with shutter speeds to achieve the background blur you want.

Study the car your shooting to see how the manufacturer wanted it shot.

Did I mention patience? Remember that.

Good luck you’re doing really well so far. It’s great you’re taking advantage the access to some amazing cars.

+1 for only showing your very best work.

While I’ve done some paid work, including photojournalism in the early 80s, I decided early on that it was better for me to not pursue a career in photojournalism/photography. Keeping it as a mostly a hobby has served me well. I had a career in tech, and that has allowed me to shoot what I want with really nice gear :-) Making a living with photography is very challenging, but it can be done. Not trying to discourage, but just sharing my approach.

I like your work, and as others have mentioned, you have good eye, so here’s my thoughts for you:

Develop your technical skills. Really understand the fundamentals of photography and optics. Understand how digital imaging and sensors work. Get really good with Lightroom and Photoshop etc. I don’t know what the cool kids are using for web design these days, but whatever it is, get really good with it. Artistic competence is the price of admission and everyone you’re competing with should have that. If you also have technical skills, that gives you a competitive edge.

Organize and catalog your work. Be sure to have a good backup strategy for all your images.

Have a physical portfolio as well as digital. There’s something really special about holding a photograph in your hands versus seeing it on a screen.

Learn about good design, style, and other visual art skills, and how to apply them to your photo/video work. Go to museums, take a film appreciation class. Checkout photography books at the library.

Be an expert on automotive design, trends, history etc. Specialized subject matter expertise is another competitive advantage.

Taking accounting and business classes helped me a lot in my career as it made it a lot easier to talk to business owners/managers etc. “Accounting is the language of business” my accounting prof was fond of saying. And it was true! Also, if you end up working for yourself, business skills will help you be successful as a business owner/contractor.

I guess what I’m trying to say is the more well-rounded you are as a person, the more likely it is that you can have the creative career that you want.

Best of luck to you!

You have an excellent eye and your photos look really professional! Selling your services is exceptionally hard at the beginning. Don’t be discouraged by a lack of responses to your pitch, follow up every so often and most importantly keep finding new ways to improve your portfolio. As sad as it is many companies are more interested in follower counts and likes than they are technical ability, so my suggestion would be to post as much high quality content as you can (1-2x daily) and start creating reels/tiktoks to build your follower count and portfolio. While photos are certainly still used and it’s perfectly fine to stay a still photo purist, the algorithms definitely favor video content.

At the beginning of your career you should do as many shoots as you can, paid or not, and explore your creativity so you learn as much as possible. In order to reliably make real money as a photographer ($100k+ annually) you will need one of the following: Significant social follower count (5k+) + consistent content posting in your specialty (automotive photography,) a network of paying professional clients with consistent work for you every month, a very successful print/stock image operation, art galleries representing your work, get hired full time by a dealership chain or car magazine or get a solid stream of one off clients who might pay less than the commercial/regular ones but come in enough quantity to fill your schedule and pay the bills. I have been in most of these situations, they all have their pros and cons.

As others have mentioned, you should be more ruthless in your culling of your photos and cropping/framing. Presenting 10 exceptional photos each of which show a clear subject and tell a story is infinitely more compelling than 50 images of varying quality on a webpage. Other than that you need to focus on the basics: Build a brand, set your pricing, develop a marketing strategy and plan for gear upgrades before you impulse buy.