You can thank direct sunlight for one color, then another when the clouds suddenly dominate the sky.  This Vespa Sprint really tests me, as does the sky.  My favorite spots don’t rely on the sun for illumination, but before the bike is prepped, it’s a rolling paperweight, making my options quite limited when the before mentioned areas are unavailable.  When I’m out on a shoot, I have the intention to provide the best images possible of a motor scooter, then the fast moving clouds which were diffusing the light give way to the sun.  What was blue, turns gray.  What would have been diffuse, with little shadow, now possesses those only the direct sun can provide.

When it comes to fill for a motor scooter’s darker areas, I’ll opt for natural light and a higher ISO than messing with my shutter speed.  This instrument cluster had both a bright wall on the right, with the darker ground on the left, so keeping it all level was a challenge. Do you think I used Lightroom?  Hint: Yes!

For the edge-on shot of the brakes, wheel, tire, and associated components, I try to use a bright background, with the sun highlighting the fresh patterns in the brakes.  Everyone likes fresh brakes, yes?  For this face-on shot, the sun began to run for the clouds, so the Sprint took on a grayish blue.  Many photographers want to keep the color perfect in every shot, but as I’ve discovered, under different light sources, a dark matte will take on various hues, so I keep them.  Do you toss out shots if they don’t line up?  Suddenly, the sun appears, with an odd reflection from another vehicle far behind.  Unfortunately, as I checked the shot in my Nikon’s display, it looked right, so the lesson is, don’t trust a display in the open sun, try to cover it when inspecting an image.

This lesson was reinforced by the next shot, which was ill-advised, but kept due to the dealer’s insistence that my idea of perfection was much higher than theirs.  Yes, the customer can overrule the artist; well, sometimes.

Thus, the set ends with the badge.  The Vespa Sprint Sport was an interesting, albeit tedious shoot, but I feel lessons were learned, plus the dealer was more than satisfied, so all’s good.