anatomy of a press trip (2022) (Patreon)

This is a shot I got on the first drive of the 2023 Kia Sportage last year when I was full-time at The Drive. I'll be on a press trip when this scheduled post goes out, so I might as well talk a little about the whole dizzying experience.

Welcome off your flight to [place with nice weather]! Here's twenty of the same brand-new car that pretty much no one else has actually seen in person yet, and definitely no one has driven. Congrats, for some reason, you, a random transsexual from Ohio, will be driving it before everyone else. We also brought fifteen various PR reps and some engineers who will treat you nicer than pretty much anyone you ever interacted with in any other job you've had. About a solid quarter of the professionals in your field are also here, so you also need to prepare to be social and charming with basically everyone who's ever mattered in your career. no pressure :) 

Usually there's a dinner and an orientation, and then the next morning there's a presentation about everything the automaker wants you to know, and to a lesser degree, focus on, in the new car. Then they turn you loose, sometimes solo, sometimes in pairs on the twenty cars to drive a long mixed-use loop of driving. If it's got a rugged off-road trim, there will be a dirt section; if it's a sports car, expect twisties and maybe even a high-performance driving experience of some sort. This is usually anywhere from 70-180 miles, depending on the drive, route, and the automaker. Return the car, and then have dinner, and fly home at the crack of dawn the next day.

Nowhere in this, you'll notice, is there really any devoted time for photos (at most events, at least), and the cars usually need to be back to the hotel semi-early so they can get cleaned and prepped for the next batch of journalists the next day. It would be fairly easy to find a single spot and cram 15 minutes of shooting into it somewhere in the day, and be done for your whole review, but look at that Sportage review I wrote and tell me how many shots have the same backdrop: almost none.

Instead, I'll find a side street with a good view in the middle of a drive, turn down it, and blast off four quick shots before I move onto the next spot. I insist on this extremely labor-intensive method of shooting because it makes it look like I actually, you know, drove the car instead of looked at it, and I think it adds more credibility to my reviews. It's a pain, but it has definitely made me a faster photographer and better at finding good locations on the fly.