Mercedes Attitude

Mercedes Benz had always held a place in my mind as a reserved luxury German auto maker... until I drove this: The 2005 C55 AMG.

My neighbor had this in his arsenal of vehicles and was gracious enough to let me photograph it at the Bonneville Salt Flats, 90 minutes west of Salt Lake City. I knew we would need a place with zero visual distraction to create an ethereal, other-worldly atmosphere. The only natural choice was Bonneville.

The C55 is the 2005 C-class Mercedes on steroids. A normally aspirated 5.5 liter V8 producing a whomping 362 horses and 376 lb ft of torque blasts its smoking jacket wearing driver to 60 mph from a stand-still in 4.7 seconds and tops out at 155 mph. Now, you may balk at this moderate top end, but let's see you keep a smile off your face as you plant the throttle in this baby!

 We had planned on being out at the salt just as the sun was setting. The perfect time. Not a cloud in the sky, and there wasn't a soul for miles around. Further out on the salt we could hear the sound of rolling thunder as many others were attempting to break records (or their machines) at the fastest speeds they could attain on this hard-pan, pure white, gravelly surface. We, on the other hand, weren't here to see how fast we could go. I set up my camera and started to shoot as the sun was setting along the peaks of the mountains west of Wendover. We only had a short window of light to get the shots I had in mind.

Out came the tripod mounted remote flash units. "Don't set them too powerfully now... just enough to make this thing pop". I had also now set the camera up on a tripod as I was going to need a long exposure to compensate for the great depth of field I wanted in this low light. ISO at 100, aperture at f10, shutter speed at 1/2 second... CLICK!

Sometimes everything just goes right. On the ride home (at a modest 90 mph) I felt a sense of progress as I had broken through a barrier in my abilities as a photographer. Location, timing, lighting, subject, camera, and mental clarity all came together. I now had the confidence to go out and tackle other shoots of equal or greater complexity without hesitation. As you will surely find in later posts, they certainly came along.