Kunal Kelkar, from India, is an automotive photographer who was in the talks with Lamborghini to go to Europe and schedule a photo shoot. Ready to pack his bags, grasp his dream, and… Denied by the coronavirus lockdown. “My mind was constantly going on and on about the fact that I would have been photographing a Lamborghini in Tuscany, and I think that’s what inspired me to try and do something creative with the 1:18-scale Lamborghini Huracán replica,” Kelkar said. The first spark was the realization that his treadmill belt actually looks like a road in motion; “Something that every automotive photographer would be familiar with from hanging out from the back of a car to take rolling shots. It was a eureka moment. It was hard was trying to make the car, which is just a simple model, look like the real thing. The panel gaps, the paint, and the proportions are far from the real car, and I was really aiming to make it look like I had shot a real Lambo.” Different challenges emerged, such as the way the toy car behaved on the treadmill, as well as the big water issue when Kumal sprayed the car from the spray bottle to create rain. “It led to large water droplets forming on the surface and it looked completely unrealistic.” To make the scene even more realistic he added table tennis net as track fencing. “The first shot took the longest, probably about two hours. There was a lot of experimentation with the lights and the speed of the treadmill. Once it was all locked in, I think the other shots were done in the third hour.” The Lockdown doesn’t mean the lockdown of our imagination and creativity, so be inspired and have fun!
More info: Instagram, Autofocus, Youtube (clip 1, clip 2)