Taking a tour around an Aston Martin restoration workshop

In my day job I am a self employed interior designer of garage workshops. I have many clients around the UK and some overseas where I provide CAD interior design drawings and liaise with architects and contractors. I cover all types of motor vehicles from motorcycles, cars, vans, trucks and buses. I've even done a couple of railway engine repair workshops.

So when I was invited to see a completed workshop, I jumped at the chance to go and shoot it. In this case, my client asked me to photograph it for their marketing purposes. The workshop in question is an Aston Martin restoration workshop where old and rusty Astons are brought in and renewed.

During this visit I realised that sadly most of these vehicles don't get driven as much as they should and are more of an investment vehicle! Speculators will buy an old beat up Aston and pay this workshop to completely restore it to it's former glory and in some cases the result is probably better than the original factory finish.

To be honest, this was a fairly easy workshop layout to design. The services co-ordination was probably more of a tricky one as they were bringing in electrical supplies from an adjacent unit. This kept me busy on this project!

So this is a set from my tour around the workshop:

Red

The workshop floor and walls were all finished in a nice light grey, the idea being that natural light brightens the whole workshop. The trouble for me was there wasn't a whole lot of contrasting colours to work with. So when I saw this red Aston, this became the centre of attention.

Panorama

A problem I usually have when photographing workshops is fitting the whole thing in the frame. My clients like this kind of shot so I do my best with a multi shot stitch panorama.

Shiny on the Outside

All shiny and red paintwork job on the outside but the inside of the engine bay looked in a terrible state here. Luckily this workshop was working on it!

Brand New

Underneath a newly restored Aston Martin, I couldn't believe the extent and quality of the refurbishment.

Not so old

The workshop also services more recent Astons. The front grill design was pretty much stolen by Ford and added to their range for years after they briefly took over Aston Martin. My own personal car has the same grill design but is considerably cheaper than this car!

Up in the stores

I've always been a fan of vanishing point perspective and couldn't resist this one.

Bug Eyed Monster

I'm not convinced my client will have used this image but I couldn't resist getting in close with a fisheye lens!

High Dynamic Range

I think I must have been going through a fisheye lens phase when I shot these images. I also bracketed the exposures to make sure I get the images correctly exposed. So when you have three over and under exposed images, you can create HDR images:

About me:
I usually specialise in shooting lightpainting images but occasionally dabble in urbex and artistic model photography. I'm always on the lookout for someone to collaborate with; please don't hesitate to get in touch if you'd like to create art.

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