Happy accidents (photography)

A story were are doing here at the newspaper required me to go out an take a moving shot of an '06 Porsche. A coworker was driving his Pick-Up while I hung out the window to snap photos.

The photo below was the first one taken ... we were traveling at highway speeds and my attention was on composing the shot with the Porsche, the signage in the background just "happened along." It was completely unplanned, but I'll take it ;)

Nothing like timing:

http://www.jekylhyderacing.com/images/P_Porsche1.jpg

Here's another shot:

http://www.jekylhyderacing.com/images/P_Porsche2.jpg

Why would they put the rear plate there and not where it's supposed to go?

It looks stupid on the engine cover....


Nice shot though hehe.

I love that 2nd shot. very nice. Are these going to be used for somthing specific??

The plate is magnetic and where it sits "normally" is not metal.
A few years ago I took out an 840 from a BMW dealership to take photos and put the dealer plate in the "normal spot" .... it was on the ground, without me knowing it, before I even left the dealership.

These photos are being used for a series we are doing called "Amelia on Board." Amelia is one of our writers and she is driving the Porsche. Throughout the series she has been a passenger in many different types of vehicles (school bus, postal delivery, UPS, bread delivery, newspaper delivery, etc). She writes about what it's like to have a driving job for work ... in this upcoming 'episode' she decided to get into the driver seat and she pursued getting the possibility of getting to drive her fantasy car, a Porsche Boxster. When we got there, they upgraded the offer to a 90,000+ '06 Carrera .... she said yes ;)

Cool, sounds like fun.

but if it's magnetic wouldn't it scratch the paint? i had one of those little save our troops magnetic ribbons and it scratched up my paint even tho i cleaned it from time to time. and why not just glue or affix something metal to the license plate area so u can put the plate where it belongs?

it probably has some form of covering over the magnet, so as to not scratch it. Like felt or some form of cloth.

it probably has some form of covering over the magnet, so as to not scratch it. Like felt or some form of cloth.
i suppose. i still think it would look better going where the license plate belongs.

agreed... but I guess it being a dealer car they didn't want to take the time to bolt on the dealer plate?... who knows.

This shoot was seriously limited on time ... I had less than 5 minutes worth of actual shooting time and I had no chance to talk to the salesmen prior to the shoot.

I suspect they might also intentionally not put a tag in the "normal spot" so they do not forget it :D

They wrap the magnet in ducttape or a thin rubber, then attach it to the plate. You can slap the plate on any metal part of hte car and it will stay attached. You would be surprised, but many cars don't really even have much metal in the rear to speak of, and 99% don't have any where hte normal plate is. Dealerships use them, because generally you hop from car to car, and don't ahve the time to screw and unscrew, etc.
Plus you want them on the most metal part of the car, because each plate usually has it's own special dealership registration and insurance card on the back, and they don't take kindly to you losing one. I've seen coworkers get nailed with hefty paycheck deductions for losing plates due to fast driving or big bumps.

Kinda nuts too, it's one thing to need it for a test drive, but the cops would actually pull us over if we were driving a car from teh detail shop to a dealership (usually only a block or 2 away) without a plate, and write a ticket. Bastards!