Sketch to page

We thought it might be interesting to follow a recent shoot of Oli's from art directors sketch to finished spread. He was tasked to create a product range spread for Mitsubishi Motors UK to be used as an advertorial in a selection of the more popular motoring magazines. The few sketches were emailed over in advance by art director Daz Smith (who wasn't going to be present on the shoot) and a plan was set about to get the idea into practice. All of the cars were delivered to the studio, and over the course of a couple of days, were each individually shot. All the heights and angles had to match so that the finished composite looked right, and so lo-res images were grabbed from the camera as the shoot progressed and mocked up in Photoshop (3rd image). The aim was to get as much of the final images shot in camera and so have as little retouching as possible. Once the images were graded, they were dropped into the background that Daz created (4th image) and lastly the headline, copy and detail images added for the finished spread. 

Heights and Angles

It's been a busy time over the last few months so apologies for apparent lack of activity on here. Oli's been off on various assignments in and out of the studio. Here's a few images from a recent Advertorial shoot for MG cars that has appeared in What Car and Autocar over the last couple of weeks. With the help of expert climber Darrin Tennant (no relation) Oli shot the  MG6 Magnette in and around the famous Llanberis Pass in North Wales. In spite of less than perfect weather Darrin was happy to shin up whatever bit of rock was in front of him working tirelessly to make sure Oli got the shots he needed.

Blue Flash

We've just completed a product film for Lotus Cars, in conjunction with Ambrook Productions, on the Exige S sports car. In a very long two days shooting in the studio and a wild and woolly few days on Welsh hillsides, Oli was part of a compact crew to film this blue rocket-ship. In addition he shot studio and location product stills for the Lotus website. You can view the film here (make sure you have some decent speakers!)

McLaren P1 Hypercar

Shooting McLaren P1 from Oli Tennent on Vimeo.

Oli was in the studio recently shooting the keenly awaited €1m McLaren P1 Supercar, ahead of the Geneva Motorshow. The main brief was to get the interiors photographed, which had not been seen before, but he managed to squeeze enough time to shoot a few exteriors of the amazingly swoopy car too. While you can spread out shooting exterior car shots in the studio, shooting interiors always entails getting lots of gear into a very small space! The timelapse sequence was shot on Oli's iPhone strapped to a stair-rail at the back of the studio, and used the Time Lapse Camera HD app, from Cateater. Some of the finished images are on Oli's website here

Astars 2013

The Alpinestars catalogues for 2013 are published, and for the first time use Oli's pictures in black & white, which is quite a departure for the client and gives a much more edgy feel. We like!

Power!

McLaren Automotive have just confirmed production of their most powerful version of their beautiful MP4-12C super car, the 12C GT Can-Am Edition. A GT race car, to be made in limited numbers, it can produce a whopping 630bhp, and is constructed largely of carbon fibre making it the ultimate track car. Oli shot the car in the studio, with a view to compositing with a track shot shot separately. All necessary as there is only one car in existence at the moment, and it's a bit too precious to thrash round Silverstone when it should be at Pebble Beach Concours

Sport Evolution

Oli recently was commissioned to shoot a pair of the rarest incarnations of BMW's iconic M3. To the uninitiated they may be fairly regular looking, albeit with a bit of a retro vibe. They are in fact the pinnacle of the first generation M cars. They only came in red or black, there were very few made, and these will now set you  back a cool £160,000 the pair.