BEHIND
THE Lens.

There's no schedule. No booking. We just go out and see what's there. That's genuinely how T&DSHOTS works. Me and Tom drive around Liverpool with the kit in the back and hope something good is parked up. Most of the time something is. Liverpool's got a mad car scene if you know where to look.

When we first started this we didn't really have a plan, just the idea that we wanted to photograph cars properly instead of on someone's phone. No studios, no paid locations, none of that. Just whatever's sitting on the street. And honestly some of the best shots we've done have been completely random. A Lambo outside a chippy, a mint condition 911 in a Tesco car park looking completely lost. You can't plan that stuff, it just happens.

The Scout

We do drive around before we properly shoot though. Liverpool's got certain areas where the good cars show up, specific car parks, certain roads, times of day. We've clocked it over time just from being out a lot. Sunday mornings are different to Friday nights. After a night of rain the reflections off the road are worth it on their own. You start to just know where to go.

Going as two of us makes a difference as well. Tom's focused on the shot and I'm watching everything else, whether the owner's coming back, if the light's changing, if there's a better spot around the corner. You miss stuff when you're just one person trying to do everything at once.

Reading the Light

Liverpool weather is grim and that's actually a good thing for this. A proper grey overcast day gives you this really even, flat light that works brilliantly on metallic paint, no harsh shadows, no blown highlights. Midday summer sun is nearly unusable. Golden hour near the Mersey is genuinely special though, the river bounces the light back and you get an extra window that you don't really get inland.

We don't carry any lights or rigs. Everything's natural. Partly because we move fast and can't be lugging gear around, but also because we want the photos to look like Liverpool actually looks. Not like a studio that could be anywhere.

The Approach

When we find something worth shooting Tom doesn't faff about. He gets loads of frames down quick because the situation can change in a minute. Owner comes back, someone parks in front, cloud moves over. Then we go through them after and find the best one. That's where the edit does a lot of the work.

If the car's still there after we're done, we print the shot on the spot and stick it on the windscreen. That's the bit that always surprises people when we explain it. The owner comes back and there's a proper print of their car sitting on the glass, no note asking for money, no invoice. Just the photo. Our details are on the back if they want more.

When you explain the windscreen thing to people they always go "wait, for free?" Yeah. We photograph the car, we print it, we put it on the windscreen, and we walk off. No invoice on the back, no pressure. Just the photo.

The idea came from thinking about who car photography is actually for. Like, all the proper automotive photography you see, magazine shoots, ads, that sort of thing. It's made to sell something. The actual person who owns the car almost never gets a decent photo of it. They'll have a phone pic from when they first picked it up and that's about it. We thought that was well weird. Some of these people have spent serious money on their cars and there's no record of it that looks any good.

Making It Work

The printing side took a while to figure out. It sounds simple but you can't just rock up with any old printer, the quality has to actually be worth leaving on someone's car. If it looks like something you printed off at home on cheap paper it's embarrassing for everyone. We tested a fair few options before we landed on something that produces a result we're happy to put our name on. Fast enough that we can get it done before the owner comes back, good enough that it looks like a proper photograph.

We put our details on the back so if they want the full digital file or more prints they know where to find us. That's the only bit where it becomes commercial. The print itself is just a gift.

What Actually Happens

Most of the time we're gone before the owner comes back so we don't see the reaction. But occasionally we're still nearby, and people have messaged us after through the site. The ones that get us are when someone says they've stuck it on the wall or their missus framed it. That's what it's for really. Something physical of a car that matters to someone, not just another jpeg sat in a folder.

It also just travels in a way that social media doesn't. A print ends up somewhere real. Someone sees it on a dashboard or in a house and asks about it. Word of mouth in the car community moves fast, and an actual object in someone's hand is worth more than any post.

Street car photography is different to studio work. You don't get to set the scene, you don't get to control the light, and you can't ask the car to hold still while you sort your settings out. You've got to be quick, you've got to read what's in front of you fast, and your kit needs to keep up. This is what we use and why it works for how we shoot.

I'm not going to list out every piece of kit with model numbers because honestly that's not the point and it changes anyway. What I'll say is everything we use is chosen for speed and portability above everything else. Nothing that slows you down. Nothing that needs setting up. If you're faffing with a tripod in a car park you've already lost the shot.

Glass First, Always

The lens matters more than the body. That's not a controversial thing to say but people still spend loads on a camera and then cheap out on glass and wonder why it doesn't look right. For the cars we shoot the focal lengths we use most are in the mid-telephoto range, it compresses the car against whatever's behind it in a way that just looks better. Makes everything feel more cinematic. Wide angle has its uses for detail shots up close but our main look comes from that compression.

When you're shooting a car from a bit further back with the right focal length it stops looking like a snapshot and starts looking like it was actually photographed. The proportions look right, the background frames it properly rather than competing with it. That's what we're going for every time.

Working with Liverpool's Light

You can't choose your weather when you're shooting on the street so you have to know what to do with whatever you get. Overcast days are genuinely great for this, the light is even, there are no harsh shadows eating into bodywork, and metallic paint looks proper. Full sun in the middle of the day is the worst. Everything blows out or goes too contrasty. We work with shade a lot when it's sunny, or we wait for the light to change.

We edit everything in a consistent grade. Same colour treatment across all the sets so when you look at the gallery it feels like one project not a load of random photos. The edit isn't heavy, it's just consistent.

The Printer

This is the bit people don't expect to be complicated but it is. We need a portable setup that produces prints good enough to leave on someone's car without it being embarrassing. That rules out a lot of options. Speed matters too because we're printing on location before the owner comes back. Getting that sorted took a while and a few wasted prints before we had something we were happy with. It's a big part of why the whole T&DSHOTS thing actually works. If the print looks rubbish the whole concept falls apart.

Everyone photographs the same bits of Liverpool. The Liver Building, the Albert Dock, the Two Cathedrals. All of it's been done to death. Those places are iconic but they're not where we shoot. After being out in this city as much as we have been, you start finding the spots that don't show up on any list and don't have ten other photographers standing in front of them on a Saturday.

We're not going to drop every location we use because half the reason they work is that they're quiet. But we can talk about what we look for and why Liverpool in particular keeps delivering when you go off the obvious path.

Industrial Areas

This is where we spend most of our time. Liverpool's got loads of old industrial stuff: warehouses, dock infrastructure, railway arches. A lot of it either being converted or just sitting there. Brick, concrete, rust. It creates a backdrop that has proper weight to it without competing with the car. A white supercar against old red Liverpool brick is one of those combinations that just works every time. There's a reason we keep going back to these areas.

The light in narrow industrial spots does things you genuinely can't fake. You get these natural channels where the light comes in from one direction and everything else goes dark. Stumbled into a shot like that once that looked like we'd set it up on purpose. We definitely hadn't.

Residential Streets

Some of our best sets have come from ordinary residential streets nowhere near anything notable. Liverpool's car culture isn't concentrated in one postcode, interesting cars are everywhere if you're actually looking. An older terraced street can give you a backdrop that feels real and local in a way you can't manufacture. A Georgian terrace. A council estate with a properly clean BMW sitting outside it. That context is everything.

The thing with residential is it looks like the car's life, not a location. It belongs there. That's what we're trying to capture, cars in the world they actually live in, not parked up somewhere photogenic because we asked them to be.

Near the Mersey

Yeah, the waterfront. But not the obvious angles. Everyone's done car-in-front-of-the-Liver-Building from the front, slightly left of centre. That's not interesting to us. The waterfront works best as a light source rather than a backdrop, shooting toward the city with the river behind you, using the reflected light off the water. Late afternoon is the window, maybe 40 minutes on a good day. That light bouncing back off the Mersey is unlike anything else in Liverpool and we use it as much as we can while it lasts.