Munich, Germany-based sports photographer Christian Brecheis had the pleasure of shooting famed German racing champion Hans-Joachim Stuck (son of legend Hans Stuck) and his two sons—who are continuing the family’s racing legacy—for Highsnobiety Magazine.
The shoot was somewhat atypical for Christian, who focused mostly on action, adventure, and sports photography. While his subjects were race car drivers (Stuck3, as they call themselves), the final spread was to be somewhat fashion-oriented. To bring some action to the shoot and to make it his own, Christian matched a Porsche, an Audi R8, and a Lamborghini with the elegant sartorial styling of the Stucks. Christian explained his approach to this fashionable assignment,
The deal was that the fashion just happens to be there. I’ll shoot action, lifestyle and athlete portraits and they just happen to wear these clothes. I wouldn’t have done it if not on these terms. I can’t compete with the high fashion photos the magazine usually features.
Setting the fashion, Christian dove into research before the shoot—mainly focusing on the cars involved.
Important to me was to learn details about having cars in action. How close you can get and what kind of things you can do at what speed, etc. I really like to get familiar with this kind of stuff to take better pictures. When I shot the Lamborghini close up, I was concerned about rubber or pebbles flying into my lens, so I took care to protect it. What I forgot was ear protection—that thing was loud!
Highsnobiety and the Stuck3 team weere happy with the final images, and it ended up being one of the bigger features in the issue. There is even a behind-the-scenes video from the shoot.
It was a fun day, I have to say. Of course, it’s always time-consuming to handle cars, change clothes for three people, drive to places, and so on, but I think everyone had a good time. I hope that we’ll get to shoot more projects with the Struck3 team in the future. To me, it was a really fun thing to do.