Day 36

36/365, originally uploaded by Aaron LaRue.

I need to quit shooting in garages, but today my brother Garrett brought me to work with him. If you have met him, you know that Garrett loves trucks.

Garrett has always been good with his hands and a little hyperactive. He likes the dirt and loves to drive fast, and it was only a matter of time before he discovered trophy trucks. When he turned 16 he bought a truck and now, two years later, it lives on the side of our house where it is constantly under construction. Garrett has spent literally hundreds of hours bending and welding pipes trying to make his truck almost indestructible, and he's doing a damn good job at it. 


After some talk with a family friend, Garrett got a job working in a shop. More importantly, Garrett got a job working on a trophy truck. After every race, they take this $500,000 truck and strip it bare. Using steel wool and WD-40, they polish every inch until it looks like new again. After that, which is a task in itself, they inspect the frame for cracks, replace any broken parts from the last race, and double check everything you could think of. Then they rebuild it, race it, and do it again. Garrett is at the bottom of the totem pole for now, so he's the one who gets to do the polishing. I would probably kill myself, but Garrett loves every minute of it. 


Today was actually really fun. I'm not a huge truck guy, but I know enough from Garrett to get by. I'm definitely going to be back for a few reasons. Bill, who drives the truck, is an old family friend and a character in his own right, and I will (hopefully) coerce him into letting me take his picture. Greg, who is a new family friend, owns the shop and works on the truck. I really got to know him today, and he's a great guy who would just be "stoked to be part of my year" as he put it. Plus, I have to take a picture of the truck when it's put together, because it's just impressive. 


From a lighting standpoint, this shoot was really hard. They were constantly working, and I didn't want to intrude, so I had to work around them. To bring the exposure up in the room, I shot a flash into the ceiling to just light everything. Then I clamped a strobe to a work table camera left and aimed it at the side of the truck to highlight the metal. Then I had to wait. The fact that this picture came together is a miracle. Garrett hopped up on the truck for something, facing the flash, and everyone else was hidden somewhere. Sometimes you just get lucky. A little tweaking in photoshop and there it is.