Cars and Friends
On the weekend of the new year a couple of friends and I were bored, and since the weather was foggy and rainy, it was only logical to meet up to take some pictures of a loaner car I had from Aristocrat Motors. It was Tim Lair's idea to get together so when he asked myself and Anthony to tag along we weren't really about to say no. I was particularly excited because he wanted some behind-the-scenes type stuff and this is something I had been wanting to do for a while.
It's actually because of Tim that my passion for photography has led me to where I am today. I first met him at a Volkswagen club meet the second week after I moved to Kansas City back in 2013. The guys had ended up doing a photoshoot that I happened to go too and he was the photographer. He noticed I had a parking tag for the same place he worked and it just kind of kept going from there. I especially noticed how methodical he was with everything and the quality of his work blew my mind.
A few months later I ended up with a DSLR of my own for a trip to Europe and it just sort took over my life from there. I tried to take photographs of cars for a good chunk of that beginning period, but slowly realized that it wasn't the niche for me. I did, however, enjoy the motorsports aspect of it greatly and will still make a point to capture more in the future. After a couple of years I noticed that I'm much more suited towards portraiture-type photography and that's pretty much where my focus has been since. I've been told I have a knack for capturing the real candid moments of emotional expression, which of course is every photographers goal. But that was really the tipping point for me to move all of my focus and attention to that area.
I've learned a lot of about photography technique and methodology from reading and practice but I owe a lot of it to Tim as well. Because we work at the same place, I'm constantly annoying him with questions about things I've read online or experienced while practicing and he's been a really good point of constructive criticism for me. I think he secretly likes helping me but doesn't say it.
But back to this shoot, we ended up at a few different places around the Crossroads area of Downtown KC. Combined with the dreary weather, I knew his images would have the right mood for the different backdrops of KC. I was having fun doing the behind the scenes stuff and watching him work while also distracting him where appropriate. Anthony was providing the laughs as usual because he's probably the funniest person I've ever met.
And as expected, Tim's results turned out amazing. I've made a point to tell him it's one of my favorites of his work I've seen to date. You should go check it out on his Facebook page here.