Greetings all! My name is Dejan Sokolovski, I’m a photographer mostly known for my automotive work. I’m based in Sweden in a town called Borås which is on the west side of Sweden. I’m 27 years old and have been working as a professional photographer for around 4-5 years now.
I believe I first started photography in 2006, that was my absolute first year I bought a DSLR camera, at that time the Nikon D50 which was amazing. Throughout the years I’ve been upgrading in small steps year by year. Before my first DSLR I’ve never really been interested in photography at all or never even owned a camera. Passion and my interest for photography started to immediately grow from the very first day.
I’ve always been a car freak since I can remember, so my natural first photos was of cars, some nature of course and some random photography around town. But yeah, I started out with automotive photography immediately once I bought my camera. But it wasn’t at a professional stage at first. Just for hobby, and at a hobby-level.
Because of my general passion for cars, not entirely engine-wise or speed wise. Sure I love speed and all that, fast cars and such but I’m more into the overall design beautiful cars have. I’ve always been a fan of beautiful art and cars in my book is the best of art.
Before I even had a camera and was interested in photography I had a interest of drawing, and especially drawing cars, new designs or just a drawing from a picture.
I like all kinds of genres of cars, but something I do like shooting most is new cars, be it a new standard Volvo S60 or a Ferrari 458. New design’s are always more interesting to shoot. Explore all nice lines of the vehicles and make the best of them.
But of course, it’s always a little bit more fun shooting a sports car than a family wagon. Sometimes you have time for a ride, and it’s more fun in 500hp than in 100hp.
I have no special settings when taking photos of cars, it all depends on what style you’re looking for to achieve and all that. But I tend to lean more towards the natural-light and minimalistic use of flash nowadays. And aim more at a natural look but having the vehicle at a great location. Location is everything and very important to get that wow-feeling. I myself love mountain-scenery and also very much like big city-life scenery.
I use a Nikon D800E, mostly for everything really. But I also have a Nikon D600 as a backup, so far I haven’t used it. Because the D800E is better. I have the top-lenses from Nikon like the 16-35,24-70, 70-200 and a couple primes as well. But mostly really I tend to just end up using my 24-70.
I do a lot of editing. But I guess it depends on what you define as a lot of post-processing. Usually and most of the times it’s basically making the car well-lit with several lighting-layers, cleaning up stuff on car and background. And some color-corrections.
I use Adobe Lightroom 5, Adobe Photoshop CS 2014 and I use Bleex for Virtual movement in motion shots. These are the “only” software you need and would want..
Editing is very important to me. That is where you put your own style on your images, your specific or typical coloration and all that. It’s good to have a vision of the look you want to achieve before you start shooting the car.
To being trusted and respected to doing work with big car manufacturers such as Volvo, Chrysler, Dodge, Polestar, Mercedes-Benz is my biggest accomplishment so far. Sometimes in photography and sometimes in post-processing for other photographers.
I have so many automotive photographers that inspire me, and they tend to change year after year, but some of my top-photographer that inspire me are: Webb Bland, Easton Chang, Jeff Ludes. And then I have a huge inspiration folder on my computer where I gather great images, most of them I don’t even know the photographer, just that it’s great images to inspire.
I would like to continue on the path I am on, doing more and more work for big brands and doing more campaign work of course. Keep doing good work, getting better shooting and in post-processing. There’s always room for improvement.
If you’re looking to be an professional automotive photographer you really have to love what you do and never give up your dream. Always shoot, experiment and try new stuff.
But a huge thing is to know the right people or get to know them, try pushing yourself in the right direction and be hungry for work…
You can see more of Dejan and follow him on:
Website | Facebook | Instagram | 500px
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