What happens when you have to create an advertising project about cars, but you don’t have a crew and have only toy cars (1:43 scale).

I got a referral from Skoda and a Hungarian car magazine to photograph model cars like they would be real. I accepted the challenge!

I really love these situations! Toy photography is special because I can do everything that is in my mind. There are no limits for these car ads! If I need snow, I make it. If I need rain, desert, streets or anything I can create them!

I spend hours and hours creating miniature worlds with as many real elements as possible (e.g. smoke and dirt). Most of the car photos took me 7 to 12 hours each to complete, but one particular photoshoot idea took a whopping 10 days for set building, concept work, shooting, and post-production.

While it would be easier to fake things like motion blur using Photoshop, I actually captured it on camera – the blur you see in the backgrounds and in the cars’ wheels wasn’t the result of digital manipulation.

I build real scenery and try to turn my photo ideas into reality. My main principle is that I don’t use Photoshop for manipulation. I do everything in front of the camera (e.g. motion blur, rain, dust, etc). Of course, there are some cases when I can’t avoid this, but I always indicate which parts contain modifications.

After the Skoda project, I have worked on another one with the Mercedes G-Class model (1:18 scale).

You can watch work videos about the images and the bottom of the article you will find a behind the scenes picture collections. I hope you will enjoy it!

More info: Instagram

I did many takes to reach the perfect look for the flying dust

Manipulation: wheel motion, car lamps.
Real: everything else.

I built this scenery for days. I made many test pictures with smoke what was a nightmare. I spent hours and hours to blowing the perfect shaped smoke behind the car

Manipulation: car lamps, air dust, sunspot.
Real: everything else.

Here the motion blur is also real. I built a movable asphalt surface while the car was fixated

Manipulation: cloud texture, car lamps.
Real: everything else.

Action shot in the snow

Manipulation: car lamps.
Real: everything else.

Playing with perspective. This is one single image mixed with real environment

Everything is real in this photo

Driving in a storm. I used water spray for the rainy weather

Manipulation: car lamps.
Real: everything else.

I built movable scenery and fixed the car. So I could move the whole background and the road. It makes the background blurry and the “asphalt” spun the wheels

Manipulation: car lamps.
Real: everything else, the complete motion too.

I used greenscreen for the homogenous background. I changed its color and placed a cloud texture

Manipulation: car lamps, cloud texture.
Real: everything else.

In this image I wanted to create as much dynamic as possible. So I used a dutch camera angle and water splash

Manipulation: car lamps.
Real: everything else, yes every part of the splash as well!

The elegance of the G-Classe

Manipulation: car lamps.
Real: everything else.

Just for fun. A dreamy picture

Manipulation: car lamps.
Real: everything else.

Here you can watch the whole workflow including the scenery building and practical tricks

G-Classe series was a difficult challenge as well. At first, I checked the life-size one to collect some inspiration

Here you can see, how everything is moving except for the car

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