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It’s rather funny how life can come full circle. A couple of years ago I not only got back on two wheels by purchasing another Lambretta but I also completed a commission for Scootering Magazine some 26 years on from my freelancing days with them.

The job I was asked to produce for the magazine was to capture two small frame Vespa Primaveras owned and built by the talented Bert Conneely, of Alchemy. These were going to be quite tricky to shoot due to one having a bare metal finish and the other a copper finish and both having some very clever brushed metalwork.
Normally my preference would be to shoot on location but I knew to do the beauty of the Scooters justice I would need very precise control of both lighting and the reflections in the bodywork. With this in mind the studio was prepped here in Somerset and this provided us with enough room to get the lights and reflectors precisely in place.

The shoot was pretty demanding taking around 11 hours to capture 16 images due to the reasons stated above.
On top of this, the creation of the backgrounds and other post production work demanded a further 30 plus hours of work.
I should at this point stress none of the natural patina of the metal has been retouched.
All in all, I think it was worth every minute to show the workmanship that Bert has created in these two works of art.
If I had one wish it was that I had another half a day to of been able to shoot more images as each time you look you discover yet another subtle touch.

Below are the final images that graced the March 2016 edition of Scootering Magazine and a short behind the scenes video of the shoot itself.