Subaru STI Passion Project

Last week I had the opportunity to capture a personal project for a buddy of mine. From a young age he had always dreamed of building out his own custom Subaru STI, and now that he has had some time with it there are bigger projects on the horizon.

Before selling it he wanted to capture some imagery as a lasting legacy of his dream car and the work it took for him to accomplish it. Together, we really wanted to convey a sense of speed and freedom in these images – so we embarked into the hills of Santa Barbara, CA to capture that classic sunkissed look and motion blur.

A lot of the techniques to capturing imagery like this comes down to timing and teamwork when you’re working on a small budget with minimal gear. The goal was to create a clean and minimal background while adding a sense of speed. If you’ve spent a bit of time in Santa Barbara you will know there are some spectacular stretches of road with beautiful oak tree coverage around town. I wanted a semi-controlled environment that would allow hints of sunlight to get through while still allowing me to slow my shutter speed down enough to create some motion blur.