The Client and Their Brief
Ariel Motor Company has been a long-standing client of DE Studios, and this project was about creating a set of studio images for the Ariel Atom.
The brief was to photograph the car in a way that showed its design, materials and engineering clearly, while giving Ariel a strong set of images to use across its marketing.
With a car as distinctive as the Atom, the challenge isn’t necessarily adding more to the image. It’s about controlling what the viewer sees and making sure the photography does justice to the details that are already there.
What We Did
The shoot took place in our drive-in studio, which gave us the space to work around the car and control both the lighting and perspective.
We used a combination of large bounce panels, diffusion and overhead lighting to shape the light across the car. With a vehicle like the Atom, there are a lot of different surfaces and materials competing for attention, so controlling reflections was particularly important.
The exposed frame, carbon fibre and bodywork all respond to light differently. Rather than lighting each element independently, we built the lighting around the car to create clean, controlled reflections and give the overall image a consistent feel.
We also photographed the car from a number of different viewpoints, including a top-down shot made possible by the studio’s high-level ceiling hatch. This gave Ariel a wider selection of images and showed the design of the Atom from a perspective that isn’t usually possible with conventional automotive photography.
Getting the Detail Right
Much of the work in automotive photography happens in the small decisions.
The lighting needed to show the shape of the car without introducing distracting reflections, while the camera position and depth of field had to work with the proportions of the vehicle.
We photographed a number of lighting and exposure variations during the shoot, giving us the flexibility to combine elements during post-production where necessary.
The final images were built from these different exposures, allowing us to retain detail across the car while keeping the reflections and shadows controlled. It’s a fairly technical process, but the intention was to keep the finished images clean and uncomplicated.
How It Looks
The Results
The finished images gave Ariel a flexible set of studio photography that could be used across its marketing, showing the Atom clearly while retaining the character of the car.
Our work with Ariel has continued since this shoot, including the more creatively driven photography we produced for the Atom 4R in 2024. That project took a different approach to the studio work shown here, combining stills and video with a more considered lighting and composition style.
See more of our automotive photography and the Ariel Atom 4R project →
For us, the two projects are a useful reminder that there’s no single way to approach automotive photography. Sometimes the job is about clarity and control; sometimes there’s more room to push the creative direction.
Planning an automotive photography project?
Whether you need clean studio imagery, a launch campaign or something more creatively led, we can help plan and produce the shoot from start to finish.
Talk to DE Studios about your next project.
