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.

Bullitt Mustang

Oli recently re-created the famous jump of Steve McQueen's '68 Mustang from the film Bullitt, in the studio. The car is an exact replica of the film car, right down to deleted badges and matt black painted rear valance (to avoid reflections of chasing camera car). Th car was jacked up in the studio and, all four wheels spinning, leapt towards the camera...

Classic (2) Wheels Project

Oli has been asked to document, and create a folio from a wonderful collection of classic bikes belonging to a well known businessman in the automotive industry. With pretty much a free rein he's got the ball rolling with an iconic Moto Guzzi Le Mans, a 'hard mans' superbike from the mid-seventies. The finished collection of images will eventually be on sale as limited edition prints.

What a blast...

Oli was tasked with recording a blast test on an armoured Land Rover recently. The vehicle having already been shot to pieces was then subjected to a simulated attack with grenades from underneath. Any incursion by shrapnel fragments would have meant failure of the project. The problem being that being close enough to get a shot also meant being rather peppered with said shrapnel. The solution was to set the camera up inside a metal box (shown bottom right of middle picture) shooting into a front silvered mirror at 45 degrees. (a normal mirror would produce a double image). Oli stood at the top of a building and fired his cameras on long electronic cable releases, judging when to press the button on the countdown of the firing officer. Curiously a standard video shot at the same time didn't show the orange blast at all!  Case of getting the right 1000th of a second. The test was carried out at The Cranfield Ordnance Test and Evaluation Centre (COTEC)

New website live

Oli's updated folio website has just gone live. As well as increased functionality, there are new images, social media links and a very nice new feature. Art directors and art buyers can choose and compose their own pdf from the images on the site and have it download to their desktop automatically, which we think is quite cool. The fullscreen view on a big monitor allows for the images to be shown at their best - huge!
Have a look here www.olitennent.com

Alternate Runway

Oli ditched the cold windy species of runway he normally frequents, for the rather more glamorous variety, when he was asked to shoot a fashion show for the charity JDRF . Shooting 100 outfits in 45minutes meant Oli's cameras were glowing red hot but of course the compensation was working with some great models such as Loren from Elite London, and raising a large sum of money for the charity.

Cream

After a few weeks on location for clients such as Polar (a new countrywide electric vehicle charging system) and SsangYong (shooting new Korando), Oli's been a bit more contemplative back in the studio. With a beautiful cream coloured 60's Mercedes 280S, he's created a couple more personal detail pictures to add to his collection.

Deja Vu

One of the joys of keeping archives of past digital shoots is the ability to revisit them after months or even years and, with judicious use of post production, reinterpret the work in a completely different way to that which was originally briefed. In this case it would've been great to see these and others from the set used like this at the time, but it was a road-test and so had to be shot, and printed, 'straight'. Thanks to cost effective digital storage the pictures can now get a new lease of life, in the style that was originally intended. these and others can be seen at www.olitennent.com

A-stars

Oli's just finished another shoot for Alpinestars clothing. Alpinestars are well known for clothing the best dressed motocyclists, as well as racers from MotoGP to Formula 1. the shoot was all on location in the south of England, and amazingly there was either too much rain or not enough... (to shoot the wet weather gear!)

Booked

In a slight change of style , one of Oli's shots was chosen for a recent book cover of well known chick-lit author Lucy Dillon. His dog 'Vespa' (there's the bike connection...) did her best folorn look long enough for him to squeeze off a couple of frames, and brilliant stock agency GalleryStock did the rest.

Out with the crazies for a change

Oli's been released from the studio for a bit of fresh air, and a quick reminder from a couple of editorial clients that it can still be fun outside!

New website goes live

Apologies for lack of activity on the news section recently we've been busy building a new site to go with the studio. You can visit 4StarStudios here. It's not only aimed at shooting for editorial and advertising clients but also classic car collectors, and of course it can be rented. The site is designed to run in parallel with Oli's own and links as well to the 4Star car showroom. We hope you like!

Car-toon

The day after a month -long trip to South Africa Oli was in the studio again with Seat Cars. Working with art director Daz Smith, the idea was to merge real a real car with backgrounds straight out of Daz's imagination. The photography and background creation were happening at the same time on opposite sides of the studio, with Oli altering the lighting as needed as the background took shape.

Retro cool

We've just had this car through the studio at 4Star Classics. It's a '73 BMW 3.0 CSL, and apparently a fast appreciating classic. Oli just reckons it's one of the most beautiful cars he's shot. Simple, clean and effortlessly stylish.