FIVE QUESTIONS WITH: Photographer Zack Arias

Five photographers in five cities with five Land Rover vehicles. That was the inspiration behind Land Rover North America’s innovative photography project to launch its official Tumblr site ‑http://tumblr.landroverusa.com. In the first of a series of interviews with the featured photographers, Atlanta‑based Zack Arias talks about his photo shoot in and around the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina.

It’s where Land Rover has its Land Rover Experience Driving School, and with 8,000 acres it’s a great location. I based the shoot around the new Range Rover Evoque, but we also used other models in the line‑up, along with some great vehicles from Land Rover’s Heritage fleet.

Thirty‑six hours before I was due to be in Asheville, I was in India on another shoot, trying my best not to get sick. I kept saying to myself ‘don’t get ill, don’t get ill.’ I wore long sleeves all the time, didn’t eat weird food and didn’t drink the water. I was pumped about this assignment and didn’t want to miss it.

 

3.    You’re not normally a car photographer. How did you approach the assignment?

I’m more of a people photographer. For the past seven years, I’ve been working mostly with the music industry, so I decided to treat the vehicles like rock bands. Think about it, the cars are all individuals with their own personalities. I was shooting a new Range Rover Evoque next to a 1960s Land Rover Series II. How different are those? So when I was scouting locations, I imagined I would be shooting a band.

It just amazed me that the instructors, who were helping me out, would take a $100,000‑plus Range Rover and get it plastered with mud. But that really helped me capture the authenticity of these vehicles. I’m a southern boy so I know about mud, and this was great. I just wished they’d have gotten even muddier.

I had done some research on it before the shoot and read that it was more of an urban vehicle, so I really expected it to be a little out of its depth on this kind of terrain, but on the first morning when I was out driving it with one of the instructors, I couldn’t believe where he was taking it. I took some great shots of the wheels up in the air, the nose down and buried in the mud, and the car looking like it should be tipping over as it goes sideways along a hill. It was certainly one capable vehicle.