CAR SPOTTING IS NOT A CRIME !
Words: Tommaso Mogge
Photography: Gian Romero
If you like me are deep in love with the brilliant TV series “The Walking Dead” you will not have a hard time imagining how you feel in the middle of a group of spotters. They would do anything to steal a shot at a random supercar that is about to run off and trust that being in the fray is not pleasant at all. But “car spotting” is not a crime, at least if it is accomplished with criteria and with a wider purpose than that of posting rough photos, identical to other dozens or hundreds out there. Much depends on the context of course and every time I think of car spotters a situation like that of the Top Marques or some checkpoint of the Gumball 3000 comes to my mind – a crowd of human beings equipped with DSLR and backpack, which run all over the place, throwing themselves even in the middle of an intersection, just to bring home the shot. The mad rush to the posting on the inevitable social media is now saturated and we therefore ask what it really takes to sweat so much for simple images that in 99% of cases will end up in oblivion or in any case will not serve anything else than to gather some likes.
A spotter does not have a precise age, but it is definitely easier to find young kids who have their own legs or public transport as the only means of locomotion. With them the faithful backpack inside which I assume they have a quick lunch, water and some memory cards and spare battery: the day of sightings is long and not knowing what could turn at the corner is always better to have the camera on and ready to shoot. Initially I did not understand the meaning, to run like crazy for taking pictures without any technical background or the slightest desire to create something aesthetically satisfying, but then I realized that in addition to that slice of emulators in desperate search of web followers, there are also young enthusiasts starting to take their first steps in the world of photography. Not everyone has press cars available, collectors or the opportunity to access some events and therefore, the only way to deal with some dream cars is just to go out on the road and hope to see a Ferrari or a Lamborghini. In the moment in which it is spotted (precisely) the excitement must leave room to the ability to frame it in the few seconds available. Click, photo taken. Sometimes two, if all goes well and there is more traffic, but often there is only one chance and there is no room for mistakes or blurred images. I’m not talking about pure photography, but after all what comes out will be a shot and it is the skill and experience in the field – yes, I said experience β that will make a picture different from all the others and maybe beautiful to look at even after some time. Different argument when walking around the city there are some nice parked vehicles and with more calm and the opportunity to devote yourself to some detail, things go up in level.
So the spotter is an aspiring photographer or is car spotting a blind alley? As in all things there is no universal answer, but seeing this step as the first step towards professional photography is not at all wrong. After all, you always have to start somewhere and practicing is the best way to improve yourself and stimulate your growth. Given the young age of most of these people, doing spotting is useful if done in the right way and with the specific goal of taking beautiful pictures of beautiful cars, never overshadowing the quality in favor of the quantity. The cars are still out there, it’s up to the best ones to stand out among the tide of proposals and show that there’s something more about them than just the intention of catching supercars. I obviously do not take into consideration those who use their smartphone – although the latest generation mobile phones have truly remarkable cameras – it would be like comparing a DJ to a musician, you really have to play music, otherwise you are just a listener who press a play button. Yep, sad but true.
So I decided to do an experiment and I left a professional photographer in the street for a few hours and asked him to take pictures of the cars he finds around (both dynamic and static), to see how much an expert hand really influences the final result compared to what I see on the Internet every day. We need to underline that it was a more easy environment than those in which, in conjunction with some particular event, see hordes of people invade the road and so the lens of your camera, but what came out was really useful to reflect on some points. First of all the material that I found is still of a high level and therefore not at all comparable to the overwhelming quantity of photographs that adorn the page of a traditional spotter (regardless of the number of followers since, I repeat that, quantity does not mean quality) and this is due to the setting and the technique. It is not about equipment or time available but the eye and the taste that a professional figure like Gian Romero puts in the field when it comes to taking a picture of any subject. The post production is equally important and without calling Photoshop into question to eliminate any foreign objects, you can still get interesting pictures. I asked Gian what is the secret behind a great picture was and he told me that the main ingredient that must have a nice picture is the ability to tell a story – if a simple image can make us imagine everything that happens behind it, we succeeded in our intent. And it is true, looking at his photos I realized that I was not just looking at the cars, but I was literally entering into the image, going almost to hypothesize a possible scenario or the sounds that kept the streets awake or a surreal silence cradling an underground parking in the most intimate loneliness. He added that the day at his disposal has provided only a few situations to produce the amount of material in mind before starting and this has meant that he had the opportunity to focus on the location, on the discovery of corners of Monaco that most of the time are simple background and instead, as in this case, become protagonists and enrich that desire to take a picture that does nothing but increase your own baggage of experience β vital when a 918 Spyder could turn at the corner.
In this issue of Auto Class we gave a lot of space to photography (see also the interview with Arnaud Taquet a few pages ahead), but at the same time I want to break a spear in favor of car spotters, so that they are not seen as a series B photographers, but as young car enthusiasts who are taking their first steps in a passion that could become their future profession, that of photography. It will stand up to their ability to grow and improve if their eye is at the service of hundreds of thousands of other observers, or if they will only remain a way to remember that on that day they saw half a dozen Ferraris and nothing more. And then let’s be honest, the difficult part is also being able to produce something qualitatively valid, as they have to cope with the randomness of what a certain day and the most disparate external factors can give, such as weather, traffic, people passing by and coming back to our crucial point, dozens of other spotters. I’m not a photographer and I just take some pictures of my dogs, my girlfriend and my car, once a month when I remember to bring it to the car wash, but thanks to my job I see hundreds of different and interesting proposals every day and if I can give a humble advice to those out there who have their DSLR ready, is to give more value to a photograph, take care of the details with the utmost precision, because to stand out you must have a strength point that makes your work personal, regardless of the fact that most will not know how to distinguish a professional photo from an amateur one, we must satisfy ourselves and for this we deserve the very best. It is not so hard to capture the eye with a photo of a Bugatti, the difficulty is to make just as exceptional a picture of a random car.