Phil Jefferies and His Amazing VW Campervan

Phil’s had this military grade VW Campervan from 1990 for a long time – it was red and pretty drab looking, it looked its age.

Then 3 years ago he decided it was time for a change – and here are the results – a bright green monster of a VW Campervan, with chunky tyres, a totally refurbed interior and lots of clever “tech” like heat exchangers for warming your shower!

Location Changes!

We arranged a photoshoot on the moors, but he’d not be able to get there till after dark – so a bit pointless being up there really

Plan B was a rubble car park at Temple Newsham – the van could not get below the gates

Plan C was to pop into the woods about 30 meters off the road and here are the results.

The Photography Bit

We started with 4 small speedlites which gave us lighting like this – it was well before dark so there was a nice dappled background.

Initially, we shot with the 70-200 lens to get separation between the van and background.

Next, we turned 2 of the flashes to the trees – added coloured gels so they cast red and blue light.

We’d now moved onto wide lenses so we weren’t so far away from the van – and it brought more height to the trees, more like a canopy.

The LED torches came out – below, Phil had a green gelled torch and Ben Gwynne had a pinkish gel.

We even did a bit of wire wool spinning – Phil had never seen this before so was suitably impressed!

We even tried using the Pixel Stick – here’s a design be Mike from Apogii – a design, visual identity and branding expert from Huddersfield.

So the lighting techniques included

1. Strobist flash – 4 flashes
2. Gelled flash
3. LED torches
4. Gelled LED torches
5. Green glowing wire
6. Pixel Stick
7. Wire wool Spinning

Great fun all round – we got some fantastic images and hope that Phil manages to get his van into the VW Campervan magazine soon.

Here are the rest of the VW Campervan photos