From The Cutting Room Floor - Nissan 200SX

When it comes to photoshoots - and editing the results - I often find myself being incredibly ruthless when I start to "cull" the selection. Slight mark in the frame? Goodbye. Just looks odd? Goodbye. Getting bored of looking through the photos? Meh. Close Lightroom and revisit at a later stage.

This rather unorthodox process often neglects photos that may have had potential, but since I didn't feel like dealing with the editing process at that exact moment in time, I just skipped over it and carried on.

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So what's wrong here?

A case in point can be seen in this photo above - taken during a shoot for a friend of his incredibly aerodynamic racecar (believe it or not, this is based on a Nissan 200SX). While it may not be a traditionally bad photo, I saw the slight light trail on the middle right of the frame (I was light painting), and immediately decided to skip over this one. Now, close to a year later, I came across these photos again on a hard drive, and thought "hey, maybe that one isn't as bad as I thought".

And maybe it isn't. Am I being too harsh? I could have always removed the lightrail in Photoshop, as well as touching up the weird shadows that appeared there.

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No creature comforts to be seen inside here at all. And yes, this is another photo that was never used.

Strangely, most of the photos that I never originally choose and only see the light of day later elect a positive response. I guess I stand quite strongly by the "quality of quantity" motto, but when it comes to a very rare car, maybe quantity wins here.

What's your view on photoshoots? The more the merrier, or rather a few, thoughtful selections?

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The garage in these photos also houses another breed of JDM beast - for when you want your speed and comfort fix all in one.

Thanks for looking!

See the original photoshoot here

Equipment Setup

CameraCanon 6D
LensCanon 24-105 F4 L Series / Rokinon 24mm f1.4
AdditionalManfrotto tripod / Yongnuo YN360 lightwand
ProcessingLightroom CC
LocationDurban, South Africa

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