Matt – One Call Auto Mechanic
“Matt Dirty”, “Matt Clean” was Matt’s idea. He is the owner of One Call Auto Mechanic, and he asked me to do a set of “environmental portraits” of him at work (Matt Dirty), plus another set of portraits for his family (Matt Clean). In this post, I show you some of both, along with some photo tips and a few safety suggestions for this kind of shoot.
Matt at Work
While the photos in front of his business were obviously posed, the photos of Matt at work were not “staged” or posed. I just followed him around one morning while he was working on cars. I was sticking my head under the hood to get a good angle while trying to stay out of his way. Just as important, I was trying to keep my camera strap away from moving parts. A word to the wise: It is a bad idea to have a camera strap around your neck if you are anywhere near something that could grab it like the belts or the fan. To take up the slack, wrap the camera strap several times around the wrist of the hand that is holding the camera to keep it out of the way. Or just take the strap off. Be careful when you are under the hood of a running car engine!
I also needed a very wide 17mm focal length to capture these photos in the confined space under the the car’s hood. All of the garage photos were taken with a Canon EF 17-40mm lens which has a very wide angle of view on a Canon 5D with a full frame sensor. For a camera with a cropped sensor, you would need something like the 10 mm focal length of a lens like the Canon EF-S 10-22mm lens.
Matt at Work
I used a combination of flash and ambient light for these photos, due to the high contrast range between the garage interior and the much darker area under the hood. Without flash, Matt would look good and the background overexposed, or the background would look good and Matt would disappear in the shadows. I had the camera in manual mode and metered the garage interior for the manual exposure, and I used automatic flash for Matt. For information on how to balance flash and ambient light, read the flash chapter in my new book, Digital Photography Exposure for Dummies.
I had a great time doing this set of “on the job” photos, and I think Matt had fun too. I think he kept an eye on me to make sure I didn’t manage to get hurt. Just check out this expression!
Matt
If you watch closely during movies and TV commercials, you might be surprised how often the camera is right on the ground. I almost never see photographers with their cameras at ground level, but it is an effective and commonly used shooting angle. My camera was on the ground for this photo of Matt changing the oil in this car. My camera was also on the ground for the lead photo in this article.
Matt at the Park
For the “Matt – Clean” part of our photo shoot, we went to one of my favorite parks on Matt’s day off.  It has a bridge, columns, and posts that I can use for natural looking poses.
Matt at the Park
Matt is very comfortable and natural in front of the camera. While I made some suggestions, he also came up with some very natural poses on his own.
Unlike the confined spaces for the Matt dirty photos, I had room to use a Canon EF 24-105mm lens which I used at focal lengths form 47 mm to 105 mm on a Canon 5D camera.
Matt at the Park
This is one of Matt and I’s favorites. I violated one of the cardinal rules of posing by cropping the bottom of the photo at his right wrist. The rule is not to crop people at a joint, like the ankles, knees, or wrists. It is generally a good rule to follow, but compositional rules, while helpful, are also meant to be broken.
You can see more photos of Matt in this album.
Matt is my mechanic. You can find him at One Call Auto Mechanic.
Matt