Last summer, I received word that our local heritage railway would be hosting the local Aston Martin owners club for a day for people to come down and have a look. Knowing that I’ve had fun photographing cars in the past, and that Aston Martins generally are very good looking cars, it was worth the short trip down to take a look. It was also one of the first opportunities for me to play with my EOS R6 Mk II out in the field.
The first cars we saw were more modern ones such as DB9s, DB7s, and Vantages. Pretty, of course, but not the most inspirational.
Quickly, though, I spotted amongst the cars exactly the sort of thing I’d come to see – something that I can say without hyperbole might be the most beautiful thing I have ever seen: a beautiful blue DB5.
For me, the DB5 is perhaps the most gorgeous car in all of history, challenged perhaps only by the Jaguar E-Type – picking between them is like picking between Natalie Portman and Keira Knightley. So of course, I spent quite a bit of time photographing it from every conceivable angle.
The main challenge was trying to get as clean photos of it as I could, without too much background clutter. Sure, there are worse backgrounds than a car park full of Aston Martins, but obviously the pictures would look better without edges of cars, people, and bright orange traffic cones. I tried, but you can still see a traffic cone reflected in the car’s pristine bodywork.
Sometimes, something even more unsightly would be reflected in the car’s brilliantly polished chrome.
With the sun behind the car, there was a great little lens flare off the shiny bodywork. I played about the levels of some of these photos to vaguely emulate an old analogue photo look, which seemed to subtlety emphasise the sun’s glare.
With not a lot of room between the cars I only had so much room to work with, and would only get so far back from the car. So I stood up a bit to get a slightly higher angle.
Eventually the owner saw me salivating, and offered to open the bonnet so I could take a look at the engine.
I stood back to get a wider shot of the car with its bonnet open and still see a bit of the engine, but at the expense of the cleanliness of the shot. Aside from all the bright orange traffic cones in the background, you can also see just how much room it had to work with, with other cars on three sides. And all being Aston Martins, it’s not like they were cheap cars should I have any accidents.
Having fawned over the front of the car for a while, I figured it was time to look at its back end.
From this wider angle you can see how closed-in the car was.
One of the advantages of photographing an Aston Martin DB5 is that there is no angle from which it doesn’t look stunning.
I took a shot of the other set of tail lights too, so you could see the DB5 badge.
I do adore the spokes on the wheels of 1960s sports cars.
But I always kept returning to the stunning chrome of the front bumper and that iconic front grille.
Before you ask, the title of this post is Aston Martins, so yes – there are some other cars in this post. I don’t actually remember what this car was, as I was focussing on the badges on its grille, but I think it was something more modern – a DB7, perhaps.
Eventually I conceded we should actually go look at some trains too, and we left the cars behind to head up to the main station building. But parked up there was something almost, but not quite, as beautiful as the blue DB5.
This, according to the name on its rear and the internet, is an Aston Martin Volante, which is the name given to convertible Aston Martins. This one appears to be based on the DB5 or, more likely according to Wikipedia, a DB6 (based on the smoothness of the front bumpers). Which means it looks very similar to the DB5 I’d just spent a while drooling over.
Left with its bonnet popped, I could take photos of its engine too.
Being a similar car, I took some similar angles – although as you may have seen when I visited Mercedes Benz World, I do like photographing pretty car wheels dead-on.
Being a convertible, I was also able to take a few photos of the inside of the car, flatcap on the dashboard included.
We spent some time at the railway (the photographs of which will be in a separate post), but on our way out I could not resist having another fawn over that beautiful blue DB5.
Despite already having taken quite a few photos, I managed to find some new angles of the car. I also closed up the aperture a bit to f/8 in order to get more of the car in focus.
Admittedly this next one is basically the same as some of the others, just from the other side (and also at f/8).
Eventually I moved on from the DB5, and took a photo of something a little more modern.
I soon saw another classic, this 1978 V8 Vantage, which you might recognise from the Bond film The Living Daylights – although this one was also in a similar brilliant blue as the DB5.
The blue paintwork was also a good background to photograph the badge on the bonnet.
Although, the black flecked paintwork of a more modern car also makes for a decent background for the modern-day badge.
This car also made for a few good wheel closeups.
It was somewhere around this point that a certain toddler (and probably a very patient wife) started getting a bit restless, so I figured I’d taken enough photos, and called it a day.
