On The Go

Arun Manoharan is a 28-year-old professional automotive photographer based in UAE & India. He has a degree in animation and decided to pursue automotive photography when he was 20. He was the chief photographer for BBC TopGear Magazine and Evo magazine. He has also done print ad campaigns for leading brands like Mercedes Benz, Jaguar Land Rover, Porsche, Chevrolet, Ford, Infiniti, Ferrari, etc.

- Arun Manoharan

Q. What got you started with Automotive photography and what keeps you interested in it?

A. Sheer boredom, to be honest. While doing a degree in animation, I started experimenting with the camera phone I had, playing with compositions— mainly for drawing references. After completing my degree, I wanted to pursue filmmaking but I felt that I wanted to use photography as a medium to tell stories and emotions in a ‘subtext over text’ or ‘read between the lines’ method. My father gifted me a Canon 60D as he saw potential in me and I decided to combine the two things I adore the most— automotive culture and art— and it has been an interesting journey ever since.

Q. Can you break down your creative process from envisioning or planning the shoot till the final output?

A. Each automobile has its own heritage and a story to tell. As an automotive photographer, my job is to reflect the symbiotic relationship between artists and engineers. When I get a subject, I do my research to understand their pedigree and conceptualize a theme. Then comes location recce. I take reference images from the location to make notes and create a light graph. Then, I do the post processing and voila!

Q. Which gears do you think are ideal for automotive photography?