Rangefinder Magazine
November 2004

Rf Cookbook by Larry Singer
David Wendt “Layers” With Light

To photograph an ultra-rare (only three were manufactured) silver 1965 Ferrari 275 GTB/C in front of a massive English manor, vehicle photography master David Wendt traveled to Dallas, TX. Although the shot, featured in one of Wendt’s upcoming 2005 calendars, appears to have been taken early in the morning or shortly before sunset, the photograph was really made at noon on a sunny day.

To get the final moody lighting effect, Wendt took nine separate exposures that he would later sandwich as layers to produce the final image. Wendt worked on this shot alone. First he positioned the car in front of the building, then he locked his Canon EOS-1Ds into place on a sturdy tripod. Using a 50mm lens set to f/22 and continuous identical exposures of 1⁄250, Wendt “painted” the car eight times with a 400 Watt-second light from his batterypowered Lumedyne flash unit.

Using a PocketWizard remote-control device to trigger each exposure, Wendt first exposed the car with available light, then walked around the Ferrari, firing his flash at different parts of the car from various distances to adequately illuminate the vehicle and give it a dramatic shape.

After the nine images were safely stored in the camera’s memory, Wendt downloaded them to his computer. He used Photoshop to drag each image as a layer over the previous layer, which resulted in a sandwich of nine different lighting layers. After the sandwich was complete, Wendt realized he had missed lighting a few spots on the front fender. He retouched those spots by creating new layers, sampling existing colors and painting them onto the car. To work on each precise portion of the car Wendt needed to retouch, he used a pen tool to create an additional 5–10 smaller layers. Because this was his first try at this technique, it took Wendt several eight-hour days at a computer to put this image together. Wendt says he could now produce the same results in two or three hours. It simply involves the desire to experiment and repeated practice with the technology.

To see more of Wendt’s photography, and learn how he shoots a variety of vehicles, visit www.wendtworldwide.com/.

INGREDIENTS
• Camera: Canon EOS 1Ds
• Lens: Canon EF 50mm f/2.8
• Exposures: Nine at 1⁄250 at f/22
• Lighting: Lumedyne 400 W/S battery-powered flash unit
• Software: Photoshop 7.0
• Printer: Epson Photo Stylus 1280
• Paper: Epson Matte Heavyweight & Premium Glossy