You have thought that by living in Ireland all my life, at some stage I would have gotten used to the rain. As it turns out I haven’t and I probably never will. However, I’ve always been of the opinion that if it’s going to rain on a shoot day, then it has to rain. I guess I should have been careful what I wished for…
When I picked up the new Fabia from the amazing crew at Automotive Team, the skies were threatening but I thought we might just get away with it. As it turned out, I was quite wrong. Exceptionally strong winds brought rain shortly after collection and in turn, completely changed the dynamic of the shoot. Luckily though, I think it actually worked in my favour. When the weather can’t make its mind up and you get showers followed by brief sunshine followed by more showers, you end up with inconsistency in your backgrounds and more often than not, dirty and grungy looking roads with random dry spots. But when the rain comes and decides to stay, it brings out a whole new colour palette from the city’s streets. You get reflections and shine that you don’t get on a dry day. You have consistent soft lighting throughout the day and the benefit of water droplets beading off the paint work. The only issue on this shoot was the strong wind, which kept rocking the tripod and made the task of getting sharp exposures quite difficult, particular when trying to drag the shutter out just a little longer to blur those passers-by.
The car itself? Well, pretty much like the rest of the VAG cars, you know it’s going to be a good one before you even drive it. I really liked it. This particular car featured a 1.2 TSI which provided more than enough nip around Dublin’s city centre. It was comfortable, well equipped and in this particular colour combination, looked quite striking amongst a sea of silver and black cars. You can consider all of those clichés about Škoda of old well and truly dead.
For more information on the new Fabia, visit www.skoda.ie
