We’ve all heard about the auto industry’s shift towards electric power, but having an electric car these days doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re puttering around a tiny, two-seat microcar. Austin, Texas photographer Marc Morrison saw first-hand how far electric cars have come during a recent shoot for The Verge’s new auto section. Marc and his team spent the day photographing Mitch Medford and his highly modified, electric-powered 1968 Mustang while Mitch successfully broke the world record for fastest electric street car, clocking in at 174 mph.
How does this shoot fit into your photographic style? How did you get involved with this?
I was very fortunate as The Verge found me through Wonderful Machine. They felt my style and their concept for the shoot would really work. I’ve been a fan of the The Verge, so this was a project that I was quite excited to be a part of. This story is the launch of The Verge’s automotive section so they were not only filming a mini-docu (which was really well done by Jimmy Shelton and Jordan Oplinger) but also this shoot to introduce the video and illustrate the article.
Were there any challenges involved with this project? If so, how did you overcome them?
Most of this shoot had to be completed on an airstrip-turned-racetrack in South Texas during the running of The Texas Mile competition. Shooting a solid black car at high noon is never my goal, but sometimes it just cannot be avoided. We were also having to shoot the car while it was on public display and the owner (our subject) in demand by the throngs of gear heads asking every question imaginable. Add the fact that he just set the the all-time speed record for a ’68 Fastback (and this was an electric version)— it just blew people away, but that did not make our job any easier.
What was involved in planning/preproduction?
Since a great deal of my work is advertising, my team is used to planning everything down to the last detail. This was way different and every bit of planning and prepro was thrown out the window when we arrived. It was a total “fly by the seat of our pants” project. The race track was an old Navy airstrip and the background a gigantic prison that could not be in our photos. We relied heavily on the colorful crowd and personality of our subject to make up for the lack of natural ambience.
What has the reaction to the images been so far?
We were on a very tight deadline as we wrapped the shoot on a Monday evening and the entire package was published on a Wednesday morning. The clients were quite pleased with the imagery and the comments thus far have been quite positive. As always, if we had more time we could have completed a few setups we really wanted to shoot.
Did you learn anything during the shoot?
When your client and subject are as passionate as you are — you realize how lucky we are to be in this profession.
Marc’s photos were featured as part of a longform story, “Dark Horse: The Story of a Record-Shattering, All-Electric ’68 Mustang,” to launch the site’s new auto section. Check out the full story here, or visit marcmorrison.com to see more of his work.