A lot of photographers have a relationship with shooting black cars equivalent to have a complicated romantic relationship. It’s filled with endless love and hate. As much as it's important to ensure the black car photos are meet with the minimum benchmark, it requires the most effort to accomplish compared to the brighter cars.
Unlike human beings, cars of black color are treated with luxury, elitism, and sophistication, which is why it is displayed on most online and printed magazines and TV bathed with liquid light. These are done with the help of camera tools, with no distracting reflections, and successful post-processing. What happens is that in order to derive such picturesque output, a lot of time, money and effort is money is required as a process.
Well-done blackwork on any vehicle becomes a mirror that shows everything around it. Therefore a high level of care is needed in order to eradicate if not limit unsatisfied reflections like mailboxes and others while trying to keep the body details intact. The challenge can be even more challenging as the scenario changes with the car designs.
Different types of black cars require different external environment tools. Cars that are slab-sided have more chances to take more reflections of objects that are facing the same sight and height. For vehicles that are heavily sculpted, the photographer will do the opposite, in a similar scenario, and requires much more sky and ground.
Another issue that happens in clicking black cars is that sometimes direct sunlight makes the photograph very unkind. During late mornings or early afternoon, the sun level is really intense. Such intensity distorts the look of black cars, alongside other darker cars. What makes it really works is that the character lines and the panel gaps occasionally camouflaged into black colors. So the best bet with taking the picture with a black car is to take it on low light. The same thing is applicable for any black color, but the black color is very sensitive.
Taking photos of black color with flash derives less attractive results comparing to lighter colored cars. A lot of black cars have non-black surfaces. These surfaces, like the tyres and trim will react abnormally courtesy of the added light caused by the flash. This caused overexposure, and such a distraction is not encouraged. The boldly colored surrounding can be utilized with perfection if it’s multi-colored. The biggest thing to avoid is having an over-black and over-white background.
So, you have to understand that paying attention to external factors is important to create the most valuable result of black car photography. So understand the context and use your photography concept to your black cars.