Euston Professional Photo Shoot 2024

Every now and again I’m lucky enough to speak to professional photographers and videographers. Earlier in the year I was at a show where Matthew Filby (contact details below) started talking to me, it turns out that he is a professional photographer and was interested in doing a Pro Shoot with my car. I said that I would certainly be up for that and we exchanged details. A little while passed and we exchanged a few emails and his friend Henry Smith (contact details below) was also interested in doing a video shoot at the same time. We eventually found a mutual date on Saturday 10^th August 2024 that worked for all us. The weather was a major question mark as the rain had been a little hit and miss the week before. The seven day forecast on the day was to be overcast, no rain expected.

The morning of the shoot arrived and I got up to complete cloud cover, with no rain. I made sure that I had plenty of products and microfibre cloths and set off to the rendezvous at ten. The journey was a bout forty minutes away just outside Thetford Forest in a little place called Euston just past Euston Hall itself. I was early and parked up somewhere that I could wipe the car over from the road dust.

Henry told me that he had contacted the owner of the Euston Hall and had permission to film there on the grounds. I drove back a couple of hundred yards to the entrance. The guys told me to follow a dusty track where the shoot was going to happen. We got out and the guys looked around then directed me to a spot to park they liked. The spot was by a little cross path, by some trees and a field.

The guys set up their equipment and I asked them if I could take some photos of them, taking photos of my car. They thought it would be a good idea and I have since shared these ‘Behind The Scenes’ photos with them so they could use them as well for their own media channels. It will be so easy to spot the Pro shots compared to my amateur Galaxy S24 Ultra photos. The pro photos have luscious rich colours, the blacks are black and area much crisper. We discussed what I wanted and what they had in mind. I wanted some ‘moody’ looking shots the rest I would leave up to them. I kept out the way as much as possible while Matthew and Henry got to work. As they were moving around different locations to shoot, I asked a few questions (well a lot to be honest) about their techniques and equipment, trying to learn about car photography.

Where Matthew went, I followed like a lost sheep and tried to replicate their photos.

Here are some initial shots of Matthew and Henry doing the distance shots.

Matthew moved to take some more shots between the trees to frame the car.

After the video sequencing for the outside shots were completed, we opened the doors and hood for a some interior shots.

Then here was my efforts to replicate what Matthew had taken above.

During the static shoot there was a couple of tractors that passed by, one pass ended up in the video.

After an hour once they were happy with the footage, we decided to go to the next location to take the rolling road shots with a drone and inside the car. I gave them a lift down the track to the main car parking area where Henry picked up his car. We met back up a couple of minutes later back at the original meeting point of the shoot.

The guys discussed who would drive first, what shots they wanted and how they were going to do it. I sat there watching them rehearse the runs. They managed to do something fancy with the seat belts so they didn’t fall out while going along.

We didn’t have to travel on the main roads to get to the fairly well hidden and out of the way road where we could film the rolling shots. Matthew drove for the video shots with Henry in the back. Then they swapped over for Matthew to take some stills of the rolling car.

Here I took some photos of them taking photos of me! We drove up and down the mile long road a few times. Their hand signals called me closer, further away, hold station, move over a little, speed up, slow down or give it some etc.

For the drone shots Matthew sat with me in the car speaking on his phone taking the directions from Henry on how he wanted the car, faster, slower, over a bit etc. While Matthew was directing me in the car, he also took a few photos as we turned around and positioned up ready for the next run.

The completed video is below. I would like to post it to YouTube but I suspect that I may get a copyright strike due to the sound track used. Not that I’m complaining as it’s a classic song.

That just leaves me with the pleasure of sharing their contact details with you as they worked hard on this little project. Matthew’s website is currently under construction, but it will be live soon. I can thoroughly recommend their services:

It was an absolute pleasure to be with the guys for the day. Very professional and knowledgeable about what they wanted and what I was after. Give the guys a look up and tell them that Mart from onemanandhismustang.com sent you.