I just washed my car. Literally just a wash. My car is due for a polish, it's been three months since the last polish and one month since I last waxed it with Collinite.
Most people would look at the pictures and think it's already looking outstanding. But in reality it's just so so. It's got a decent shine and some light swirling now. But people get caught up looking at the work of the detailing pros and wonder why there car doesn't look as good as those guys. Well one of the major reasons is simply photography.
Knowing how to use a camera and how lighting and angles play on polished surfaces sorta gets ingrained in detailers. Especially people who did this as a business. There's no better advertising than word of mouth, but the second best is photos of your work. An iPhone simply won't cut it.
Here's some pictures of my so so car, it's my daily beater. This car has only been polished with a cheapy 6" random orbital, wool bonnet and M105 years ago, it's kept up with a seasonal polish with D151 and then when that protection wears off quickly I wax it with Collinite 915 and repeat the Collinite waxings monthly since where I work my car gets at least a half dozen very acidic bird bombs a day and spends all day in the sun. The birds feast on sour purple mystery berries and the bombs are thus bright purple too.
First the swirls, you can see light swirling, in real life it looks slightly worse. So nothing to write home about.
You can see it's very reflective. Or is it? The photo was taken near sunset, with a Pentax DSLR at stopped down at f11 which greatly sharpens the reflections when you take close up shots. Tricks of the trade really which enhance the photos.
The hood which is actually quite beat up and a little more swirly than the rear panel but I couldn't take a picture of the swirls since it was sunset and the rear panel was facing the sun which would show off the swirls more.
But like I said this car is only decently polished and taken care of nothing special. So if you think just because you snap a pic and it doesn't look like the pros job it may just be your bad pic and not your polish. Sometimes it's easy to forget, unless you've seen the car in real life you don't know that your's isn't looking pretty much just as good.
Most people would look at the pictures and think it's already looking outstanding. But in reality it's just so so. It's got a decent shine and some light swirling now. But people get caught up looking at the work of the detailing pros and wonder why there car doesn't look as good as those guys. Well one of the major reasons is simply photography.
Knowing how to use a camera and how lighting and angles play on polished surfaces sorta gets ingrained in detailers. Especially people who did this as a business. There's no better advertising than word of mouth, but the second best is photos of your work. An iPhone simply won't cut it.
Here's some pictures of my so so car, it's my daily beater. This car has only been polished with a cheapy 6" random orbital, wool bonnet and M105 years ago, it's kept up with a seasonal polish with D151 and then when that protection wears off quickly I wax it with Collinite 915 and repeat the Collinite waxings monthly since where I work my car gets at least a half dozen very acidic bird bombs a day and spends all day in the sun. The birds feast on sour purple mystery berries and the bombs are thus bright purple too.
First the swirls, you can see light swirling, in real life it looks slightly worse. So nothing to write home about.
You can see it's very reflective. Or is it? The photo was taken near sunset, with a Pentax DSLR at stopped down at f11 which greatly sharpens the reflections when you take close up shots. Tricks of the trade really which enhance the photos.
The hood which is actually quite beat up and a little more swirly than the rear panel but I couldn't take a picture of the swirls since it was sunset and the rear panel was facing the sun which would show off the swirls more.
But like I said this car is only decently polished and taken care of nothing special. So if you think just because you snap a pic and it doesn't look like the pros job it may just be your bad pic and not your polish. Sometimes it's easy to forget, unless you've seen the car in real life you don't know that your's isn't looking pretty much just as good.
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